Verity Ashton has been Soraya, famed courtesan, for twelve years. After she finally has enough to support herself, she breaks free and disappears. Unfortunately, her keeper, the Duke of Kylemore, isn't ready to let her go. He ends up kidnapping her by threatening her brother, and he's determined to make her his again.

oracne's description of the first chapter had me intrigued enough to check this out, despite the kidnapping plot: it's your standard prologue of the rake with his mistress, only in this case, the mistress is the heroine as well.

Unfortunately, the courtesan button wasn't enough to overcome pretty much every romance trope I hate ever. All right, I'll be fair. Campbell doesn't talk about yonis or the Kama Sutra, there is no skanky villain sex or evil homosexuals.

I got about two-thirds of the way through this because I adored Verity. I was hoping that the kidnapping plot and Verity's very real distress and fear would end up in a dark and disturbing relationship -- and it does. Unfortunately, the narrative doesn't seem to think so quite as much as I do. I did like how Campbell doesn't underplay Verity's situation, nor does she attempt to whitewash the duke. As such, I was rooting for Verity to brain him with a poker and run away with a nice guy.

But then, there were those stupid romance tropes, in which the duke starts feeling RLY RLY SORRY about kidnapping Verity and basically molesting her... not because kidnapping and molesting are bad things to do, but because Verity has been so brave through it that she didn't deserve it. Gag me. Then, he basically rapes her three times (so far), and of course she's still aroused despite her attempts not to be. At least she doesn't melt in his arms afterward. Somehow, the duke is still convinced that this is the best way to get her back, and once again, sex is portrayed as a woman's greatest weakness, even if said woman is a notorious courtesan.

Then, after rape #3, the duke goes off, and Verity wakes up, hearing a tortured cry in the night! Oh yes! Since they are in the house of his tortured childhood, he is having nightmares! Despite Verity basically having been kidnapped and raped, she goes to comfort him.

That was when I threw the book against a wall with great vehemence. I am guessing that the duke ends up repenting his wicked ways, but only because Verity is so wonderful, not because he was wrong. Also, he is an entitled jerk who goes around saying that she owes him -- not because she ran off with his money, not because she broke the contract, neither of which she did, but because she tricked him into supporting her!

I just... ARGH. And it would be better if there were some realization about the relative privileges of a rich white male duke in Regency England, when compared to a poor white woman who whores herself out for twelve years to eat, or some sort of realization that maybe her being nice to him because he was paying her wasn't some sort of fiendish womanly trick, or that possibly that affection was, oh, not earned? That him showering her with giant jewels does not necessitate that she return his feelings? ARGH! ARGH! ARGH!

I have no words for how much I hated Kylemore and wanted him to die, preferably, as aforementioned, with Verity beating him over the head with a poker. I will be nice and let him repent and grovel, but then, ideally, he would crawl off into a miserable corner and snivel while she runs off to another country and starts her own business.

Note to authors: possibly the best way to win a courtesan's heart is not to force sex on her, especially if she became one out of some financial or societal pressure. Just maybe.