A review by liketheainapple
Worth Any Price by Lisa Kleypas

4.75

SUCH a readable story by Kleypas to cap off the Bow Street Runners trilogy. Nick Gentry is a fascinating character, the most interesting male lead of this series. His tragic backstory exposes so much about the injustices of policing and incarceration.

I love how Kleypas explores ideas of possession, autonomy, and touch through our leads, Nick and Charlotte.

Both have suffered sexual abuse, have unique relationships with physical intimacy, and have lived in conditions of unfreedom. Nick lived under constant threat of rape while in prison, and as a result "It seemed impossible to explain that for him, sex and pain and guilt were plaited together, that the simple act of making love to someone seemed as impossible as making himself jump off a cliff." His placement in prison and his later "freedom" are both due to his brother-in-law Sir Ross Cannon. Before he meets Charlotte, he spends years under the tutelage of a madam, where he cultivates this deep knowledge of sex as healing and tenderness. Charlotte has long been promised to Lord Radnor and has been molested and controlled by him. Her freedom from him comes at great cost. 

There's then an intriguing contestation of free choices between Charlotte and Nick. He pursues her knowing who she is, but she doesn't know who he is. Her dalliance with him is liberating--her first free expression of physical desire--until she finds out she has been betrayed by him. Her subsequent marriage to him is a mixed bag of free and unfree choices.

So much to chew on!