I was enjoying this historical romance novel very much for the first two thirds or so. It wasn't without its small problems--the odd typo or internal inconsistency, a sometimes slightly wobbly transition from one pov to the other, the occasional "Eh?" that was almost certainly due to my reading book three in a series without reading the others first--but for the most part, I was wrapped up in the story and didn't really mind. Lulu was a domina in contempory times until she hit her head and woke up in the body of a young woman in the 1880s. I had no trouble suspending my disbelief about this; it's just the set-up for the story, whevs. Though it did annoy me that Lulu never seemed to even wonder what happened to the woman who was *supposed* to be in it. It made it a bit of a struggle to like Lulu, to be honest. But like her I eventually did, and I was happily following her story and that of Gray, the man she must marry and who is deeply terrified of and shamed by his submissive and mascochistic tendencies. Things ensue as you might expect, with a nice attention to their feelings and the problems that arise between two people trying to forge a life together under weird circumstances and having only just met.

And then it all goes weirdly off the rails. Lulu and Gray reach a climax of sorts in their relationship, and then suddenly Lulu has trouble being emotionally intimate with people. This only comes up at that juncture in the story, and it feels tacked on. The book doesn't handle it well either--from that point forward, Lulu and Gray seem wishy-washy about their feelings, apparently coming to an understanding in one scene and then in the next acting as if that scene hadn't happened at all.

Sooo, I dunno. Two thirds of a great book plus one third of mess? I can't recommend it, but I am intrigued enough to go back and try the first book in the series. ( )