The forty-ninth book I read in 2014 was All Afternoon with a Scandalous Marquess by Alexandra Hawkins. This is the fifth book in the Lords of Vice series by this author. I finished this book on 6/6/14. I rated this book 2.75 stars out of a scale of 5. This book was about Simon Jefferes, the Marquess of Sainthill (known to his friends as “Saint”), and Madame Venna, the proprietress of the Golden Pearl. The Golden Pearl is London’s most infamous and well-established brother, and Saint has been drawn to her from the first day they met. And when after a year of chasing Saint finally manages to get Madame Venna into bed with him, she immediately distances herself from him.

Six years later, Saint still can’t seem to get Madame off his mind. He’s slept with many other women employed by Madame Venna and he still only seems to want the proprietress herself. Meanwhile Madame Venna is living a double life both as the proprietress of the Golden Pearl and also as mild-mannered philanthropist Catherine Deverall. Saint encounters Catherine on the streets of London and he begins courting her, not realizing that Catherine and Madame Venna are one in the same.

Overall I was not a fan of this book. I didn’t like that both the hero and the heroine had sex with the best friend of the other and they kept throwing it in each other’s face and it just bothered me a lot. I didn’t like the end very much either. The story kind of jumped all over the place to try and fit an ending into place and it ended up just being choppy and hard to follow. Also why was there never any confrontation between Catherine and her father. She has a deep hatred of him throughout the book (and rightly so) but then all of a sudden at the end everything is ok? I felt like I was missing something there.

While I was not a fan of this book, I always feel like a series should be read in full so as not to miss any of the parts. The series is one that I overall like so far but this book was definitely not my favorite in the series.

Link to author website: http://www.alexandrahawkins.com/

Link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Afternoon-Scandalous-Marquess-Lords-Vice/dp/1250001374/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y

Link to rest of reviews in Lords of Vice series: https://rebeccabookreview.wordpress.com/category/book-reviews/book-series-book-reviews/lords-of-vice-series/