The Dance of Desire by Delphine Ross
Muses of Scandal #2
Historical Romance
February 22, 2024- Self-Published
ARC

Review by Angela

After reading the first book in the Muses of Scandal series, which I enjoyed, I was pumped to read book two, which features Angela and her childhood best friend, Sunny, the Earl of Sunderland.

Readers were introduced to Angela Bartham in The Poetics of Passion, she is the sister of Musa and determined to make a good match to help support her family. For those of you jumping right into the middle of the series, Angela and her siblings are tainted by their parents’ scandalous elopement years prior, which involved whispers of an affair and their mother’s annulment from her previous spouse. But they grew up with love and artistry.

This is a friends to lovers, marriage of convenience, beauty and the beast romance. After the disappearance of her father, Angela’s family falls into financial ruin, with only Musa, the oldest sibling, supporting them through her writing. Angela decides to enlist her aunt to help her make a good martial match. Agreeing to marry a handsome tradesman and turning down her best friend’s offer in the process.

Which is where The Dance of Desire opens- with Angela’s wedding and the reappearance of Sunny. It’s no surprise that the wedding becomes a mess, and Angela is left at the alter when her fiancée is proven a bigamist. Sunny, despite his lingering hurt and anger, jumps in and marries her, determined to save her and her family, but also bent on keeping his distance and not rekindling their friendship. They later agree on a year’s timeline before they can seek an annulment and get on with their lives. But until then, they will reside in Paris, away from the gossip papers in London.

I enjoyed this romance, despite Sunny being a complete ass for the first half of the book. Friends to lovers is one of my favorite tropes, but I this kind of felt more like a friends to enemies to lovers romance to me. Though, I really enjoyed the throwback scenes of them forming their friendship and spending soft, sweet moments together. There are a lot of side plots, which I’m not even going to dive into because it would spoil the overall story arc, but there were moments that I kind of wished that their love evolved in a quieter way, with no outside forces throwing them together.

But in the end, I did like this romance. I’m looking forward to what comes next in this series.

Grade- B-