*I received a copy of this book in eBook format via NetGalley in return for this review. All reviews published on Yours, Chloe are completely honest and my own, and are in now way influenced by the gifting opportunity.
Title: The Dance of Desire
Author: Delphine Ross
Genre: Historical Romance
Rating: ★★★★
Spice Level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️ (Open Door)
Best friends make bad
spouses . . . and worse scandals.
When Angela Bartham of the
notorious Bartham family is stranded at the altar on her wedding day, she's
saved from ruin by her old friend Sunny, the Earl of Sunderland. He offers a
startlingly generous proposition: a marriage of convenience that will last
exactly one year. Long enough for society to stop gossiping. Long enough for
the press to lose interest. Then they’ll quietly annul their unconsummated
union.
Left without choices, Angela
agrees. But Sunny is no longer the sweet but awkward boy she grew up with—and
who once loved her. A mysterious trip abroad has transformed him into a surly,
secretive beast of a man who can’t seem to stand the sight of her. Nor is
Angela the romantic girl who once danced all night under the moon. She’s a
heartbroken beauty trapped in a fake marriage that can’t end soon enough.
To avoid the chattering
crowds, Angela and Sunny flee London to spend their year of marriage in Paris.
But what they don’t take into consideration is that emotions aren’t
particularly rational . . . especially when there’s only one bed in the gothic
feline-laden chateau they’re stuck inside near the Bois de Boulogne. Forced
proximity reveals hidden depths, turning their marriage of convenience into a
messy affair of the heart. Will Angela and Sunny's dance of desire come to an
end, destroying everything they hold dear—including their friendship?
The Dance Of
Desire is the latest historical romance by author Delphine Ross. Set during the
nineteenth century, this Beauty and the Beast inspired story is a
fantastic marriage of convenience romance between a ballet-dancing beauty and a
beastly brooding earl.
This is a charming
and generally light-hearted slow-burn romance told through a split POV third person
narrative. The story was well paced, although I would have liked a little bit
more relationship building as most of this were lost to the side-plots. I loved
the gothic French chateau setting with it’s secret passageways.
The Dance Of
Desire which is full of all of your favourite romance tropes and they are
all wonderfully written. On top of the marriage of convenience
trope and the grumpy/sunshine dynamic you can expect from a Beauty and the
Beast inspired story, the chateau has only one bed (although they have a ‘we’ll
only sleep in it at different times’ arrangement), there are 'Touch Her And You Die' moments and Angela and Sunny are also
(estranged) childhood best friends to enemies to lovers.
This is the
second book in the Muses of Scandal series but the books work as
standalone stories and can be read out of series order. This was my first time reading
anything from Delphine Ross but I was hooked on her engaging writing style so
now plan to catch up on the first book in the story.
Angela was a
sweet FMC whose love for ballet added a really nice touch to the story,
although I was expecting there to be more ballet content than there actually was.
She was young and quite naïve but matured over the course of the story. It did
take me a little while to warm to Sunny as the MMC due to his grumpy nature and
childish urge for revenge, simply because the woman he loved had rejected him,
but by the end of the story I really liked him. His backstory, that being the
reason he’s become this brooding beastly earl, was really interesting. There
was also some good lesbian representation within the story and Helene
was one of my favourite characters.
Overall, The Dance Of
Desire is a charming, light-hearted historical romance, perfect for fans of Beauty
and the Beast and fairytale retellings.
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