A review by lassarina
Worth Any Price by Lisa Kleypas
5.0
I really enjoyed the first two books in the Bow Street Runners series, and I was hoping to find something that tied up the threads and gave Nick the happy ending that maybe he didn't deserve, but that he could earn, and this delivers perfectly. I loved Nick's transition from the spoiled brat (it must be said) that we see in Lady Sophia's Lover to the man he is in this book. I adored Lottie for her resilience and determination to find herself a way out. I liked seeing Grant and Sir Ross show up with indicators that they remain happy.
One thing I didn't really like is Lottie's family; they're cardboard villains, and okay, so people can be terrible and selfish and awful when it comes to their children, but their sheer callousness astonished me at the same time I found it unbelievable. Their interactions with Lottie (and her sister) were distant and wooden and I had trouble perceiving them as any kind of real threat, even though I pegged the outcome of Lottie's rebellion perfectly as soon as they showed up on screen. Some of that is the genre--of course there is a happy ending--but I never felt like there was a real threat to the characters, and that dampened the impact of the "danger" they were in. (Knowing "everyone turns out OK" doesn't usually stop me from being very invested and worried in other novels, so it's worth mentioning here.)
That being said, it was a fantastic read and of course fabulously hot, though readers might want to be aware that there are multiple references to past (threatened and actual) sexual assault as well as violence and suicide.
One thing I didn't really like is Lottie's family; they're cardboard villains, and okay, so people can be terrible and selfish and awful when it comes to their children, but their sheer callousness astonished me at the same time I found it unbelievable. Their interactions with Lottie (and her sister) were distant and wooden and I had trouble perceiving them as any kind of real threat, even though I pegged the outcome of Lottie's rebellion perfectly as soon as they showed up on screen. Some of that is the genre--of course there is a happy ending--but I never felt like there was a real threat to the characters, and that dampened the impact of the "danger" they were in. (Knowing "everyone turns out OK" doesn't usually stop me from being very invested and worried in other novels, so it's worth mentioning here.)
That being said, it was a fantastic read and of course fabulously hot, though readers might want to be aware that there are multiple references to past (threatened and actual) sexual assault as well as violence and suicide.