ARC Review: Sapphires are an Earl’s Best Friend by Shana Galan

What a fantastic story! This is what I call a can’t –put-it-down type of book. I loved this story for so many different reasons! 1) The characters were very interesting 2) It was packed with action 3) the writing was fantastic!

This is the third story of Jewels of the ton. There are two previous works about “The Three Diamonds”., Juliette (the Duchess of Dalliance) Fallon (the Marchioness of Mystery) and Lily Dawson (The Countess of Charm). Lily is a fallen women. Society knows her as a very celebrated courtesan. In reality she is a sapphire –gun-packing spy. Lily was a fantastic character. She was very strong and also “charming”. She is on mission from the Crown. Her mission is a big one. She has to uncover the identity of Artemis, one of the most dangerous traitors to the English Crown (I would of never guessed the true identity in a million years). She also has to bring Lucifer, a sinister traitor and murder to justice. One of the key suspects is the Duke of Darlington. This puts Lily in a very difficult position because the Duke is the father of the man she loves-Andrew Booth-Payne. Lily has always loved Andrew and has had her heart broken numerous times because of his infatuation (I thought more of obsession) with her good friend Juliette (the Duchess of Dalliance).

Lily puts her charm to work and leads the Earl of Darlington to believe that now that he is a widower she wants to fill his deceased wife’s spot, making her Andrew’s stepmother. Because of her mingling into the Duke’s life Andrew begins to pay a lot of attention to Lily. He begins to see her for who she is, well at first for who he thinks she is. Although Lily ultimately has to confess to Andrew the real nature of her work there are still other secrets that Lily must keep because life’s depend on it.

I must confess that I did not care for Andrew at the beginning of the story. I really disliked how he overlooked Lily and was very focused on Juliette. But this also became a very endearing quality because the author showed how Andrew began to really see Lily and ultimately fall in love with her. I loved that Lily was a very strong female character but Andrew was her Achilles heel. She finally has Andrew’s attention but at what cost? Can she complete her mission without her heart getting in the way?

This story was original, the bad guys were very bad. The action scenes actually had me holding my breath. I wanted to smack Andrew a couple of times and was constantly cheering for Lily. Lily is far from perfect and is pretty but not to Andrew’s taste. He is so focused on the type of women he likes he has overlooked Lily for many years. Lily is tough and takes no prisoners whether it be in the tearoom or chasing after Lucifer, himself, she can hold her own. The only fault I had was not reading the previous to books because this last part of the trilogy answered a lot of questions that were brought up in the first two books. I also missed out on being introduced to Andrew and his Juliette obsession. Other readers would probably find this story more rewarding by reading the previous two but this is still a very worthwhile story. Both Fallon and Juliette play parts in this book and they seem just as interesting as Lily, the Countess of Charm. You cannot go wrong with this book! Bravo Shana Galen!

**ARC provided by Publisher**

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