Lord of Sin

3.75* Review originally published at Romancing Romances. I received an eARC at no cost from the author, and I am leaving a voluntary and honest review. Thank you. This was the first book I’ve read by Heather Boyd. And it was a great surprise, especially since this book has a “friends to lovers”, which is one of my favourites. But I feel like I must point out that we don’t actually have a lot of moments when we can actually see Portia Hayes and Julian Wade as friends, because that seemed to mostly happen in the previous books – which I have not read. Portia is a bit arrogant and is used to getting everything her way. She’s flirty, a good friend, and independent. And she wants to fulfil her family’s wish, which is for her to marry a high ranking gentleman, so that her family – especially her younger sister – have a better position in the ton. But she wishes to marry for love – or at least to have a happy marriage. And then the duke of Montrose proposes. And she can’t say no. At first, she thinks it might be a dream, that even though they don’t know each other, he can’t be as bad as everyone else says. And then the invitations start to thin up, and she realizes that the dream life her family wanted wasn’t real. And she decides things have to change. Julian Wade has been in love with Portia for several years. He thinks that after so long, she will realize that he’s in love with her, and she will fall in love with him as well. Things didn’t work out as he had initially planned but, of course, this is a historical romance, so the HEA is guaranteed. There are several funny moments during the book, and the romance heats up a bit towards the end. And Portia finally takes control of her life, and she sets everything so that the mean, controlling Montrose gets what he deserves, and she gets her happy ending with Julian. A great start with this author.