The Illustrated Romance

Guarding a Notorious Lady
(Devine & Friends #3)
by Olivia Parker

“A woman of pristine breeding, Lady Rosalind Devine is also an unrepentant meddler and snoop–which is why her brother refuses to leave her to her own devices while on his wedding trip. But Rosalind will not make things easy for any unseen, unwanted “nursemaid”–and vows to use her considerable wiles to expose her mystery guardian.

Nicholas Kincaid, the Marquess of Winterbourne, agreed to secretly guard his friend’s spoiled, stubborn sister, though her infuriating penchant for mischief is causing him to question his decision. Though bound by the rules of society–and friendship– Rosalind’s spirit and sensuality have sparked a fierce desire in Nicholas to play a very different role in her life, one that entails passion, ecstasy . . . and unavoidable scandal.”

-Goodreads Blurb

I had a hard time with this book. It just didn’t build tension like I would have liked. The storyline is good, the characters were something, but there just wasn’t any need or want for me to find out how they got to their HEA. I am not really sure why. It felt like I knew the entire book before I was out of the first chapter which was frustrating.
The fact that he is Scottish-ish doesn’t add anything to the story other than mind-eye-candy, which is nice except that you then wonder why on earth he is a Scot. This book had some very real possibility that I just dint think it quite lived up to. It got better toward the end, but he got so incredibly brooding it seemed like an entirely different hero at times. I really liked her personality, but one of the things that makes her who she is is prevalent in the beginning then just disappears except for mentions, and speaking of mentions the bet that is the talk of the town, and a huge reason the hero is in the story and isn’t even explained! Or is it and that was something very easily missed? I’ve no idea, but every mention of this so called bet annoyed me because I didn’t know what it was for.
So I had a hard time, because I really wanted to like it, but just didn’t. Also, at the end I think there is a serious editing mistake, or part of the book is missing, because he goes from telling her to leave her door unlocked to pulling her out of the room to go swimming at night basically in the same breath and it makes no sense whatsoever. But neither does swimming at night when she nearly froze falling in the lake earlier in the day. Hopefully it gets one more good edit before publication becuase there were some errant copy edit mistakes.
I really wanted to like this book, because I really liked where she was trying to go with the characters. I thought they were worth the effort of finishing, but in the end I was disappointed. It didn’t work for me.
That being said, I didn’t throw it across the room, I merely fell asleep readng it, (yay for smacking myself in the face with my iPad!) I didn’t roll my eyes, because nothing was preposterous, far from it, it was all much to easily accepted. And no WTFckry.
I gave it 3 stars because I really, really liked the characters.