Genre: Romance, Royalty
Actual Rating: 3 stars
Content Warning: Sexual content, death of a family member, and grief.
“To Love and to Loathe” follows Jeremy, the Marquess of Willingham, and Diana, Lady Templeton, as they become lovers of sorts. The Marquess and Lady Templeton have known each other forever and their sexual tension has been evident for just as long—but they’d never be the perfect match for the other, the Marquess is a player and Diana’s brother’s best mate. That’s why, when they’re younger, Diana marries someone else, someone much older, becoming Lady Templeton and then just as quickly becoming a widow. Now, years after becoming a widower, Lady Templeton is approached by the Marquess of Willingham because his pride has been wounded. Having a previous lover critique his sexual skills and branding them as mediocre, the Marquess asks Lady Templeton to take him as a lover, as to be reassured that his skills are indeed acceptable and so other men are aware that she’d be interested in taking in a lover. Through a regal friends-with-benefits situation, this book will transport you to the 1800s and make you fall in love (again).
This was a very lighthearted book with the same storytelling, dynamics, and tropes as the first book in this series. Following two characters we met in “To Have and to Hoax”, this second installment was told through different points of view and had some enemies-to-lovers action going on—just like the first installment did. The only reason this book had a lower rating than the first book in the series did is that I got bored at times. Objectively, this book wasn’t extremely slow-paced, but I just lost interest and had to stop reading it. This book did not hook me as intensively as “To Have and to Hoax” did.
In essence, you’ll love this book if you loved the first book in the “The Regency Vows” series, but at the same time, I feel like this book would work well as a standalone. Yes, you’ll understand some backstory better if you’ve read “To Have and to Hoax”, but if you get your hands on “To Love and to Loathe” first, don’t hesitate to read it.
I would recommend this book to readers who like the friends-with-benefits and enemies-to-lovers dynamics.
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andrea's galley 