The original review I wrote for this book way back in 2008 can be found HERE. (Again, it's probably not worth your time...my poor little eighteen-year-old self wrote it). While I was on maternity leave, I made a very slow, well-intentioned effort to start reading some of the books I'd amassed in my extensive collection. I don't have the exact date I completed my re-read of this book (newborns are a bit distracting), but I believe it was sometime in January of 2020. This updated review was penned on May 19, 2020; I'm going to do my best to provide a decent review of the work.
I enjoyed this book a great deal the first time around, but less so this second read. My original review raved about the plot and well-developed characters. It took me bit longer than usual to get through this book, and I think that is in part because moments felt rather flat to me. Overall, I liked it a great deal more than the first book in this series. The characters were much more "fleshed out" than Grant and Victoria were. Sophia's plan for revenge is, for the most part, I feel better contrived than Grant's desire for revenge in Someone to Watch Over Me. I understood it much better - she had more realistic motivation to want to bring down Sir Ross. However, there were moments where her tactics seemed to get a bit hazy. I realize she's no expert and she's supposed to lose sight of her goal as she falls in love with Sir Ross, but I just got the feeling that there was something missing. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't put my finger on what felt off.
Sir Ross was a decent character. I liked him a great deal in the first book, so it was nice to see him again. He was better developed than Grant was as the male lead. His backstory suited him and the plot. His family was where I felt it got a bit iffy. His mother, in particular, didn't seem to fit the role I expected and sometimes her interactions felt contrived just plain "off," for lack of a better adjective. Grant, as a secondary character, felt like a completely new person. I realize it's intended to show how true love changes a man, but there was no shadow of the man he used to be (other than his work ethic). Then again, who am I to say who Grant is or isn't...because I sure didn't get a really good sense of who he was in his own book. But I digress. Basically, Sir Ross was a better male lead than Grant, but I found his sudden acceptance of his attraction to his new employee (Sophia) to be a bit unrealistic, and rather below where I expected his morals to be.
I thought the plot was interesting, the characters were better developed than the first book in the series, and I was pleasantly surprised by the big plot twist toward the end of this book. I'll just say that Kleypas earns some serious points for keeping this twist hidden so well. It was a creative enticement to read the next in the series.
Overall, I have definitely read better books by Kleypas, but there are some redeeming qualities to this particular book.