The Painted Lady by Avery Sterling

Tracy’s Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Series: Standalone

Release Date: July 22, 2024

Delaney Harper sails to New Orleans eager to reunite with her mother, and receives one shock after another, starting with a passionate stolen kiss by a masked man and ending with learning that her mother is dead and owned a brothel, and it is now Delaney’s. Delaney’s passion is painting, so she plans to sell the brothel as soon as possible, and move on with her life. Unfortunately, the brothel is run down and needs to be fixed up before anyone would consider buying, which means Delaney is now a madame! Keeping her identity a secret shouldn’t be a problem as she uses the alias Madame Vanessa Cardui aka the Painted Lady, but when her masked stranger shows up, keeping her secrets and her heart intact might be a bigger problem than she anticipated!

Alderic Beaumont was once a French aristocrat and a corsair, but he is now a smuggler and partners with Nye Tarquin. While celebrating Nye’s marriage, Alderic crosses paths with Delaney and steals a kiss. Later he seeks her out and believes she is Vanessa, the new madame of the Bird House. They embark on an affair and Alderic falls hard for her and becomes her greatest ally, but when he learns that she isn’t who he thought she was, will his feelings change, or can they find their happily ever after?

This was not your run-of-the-mill historical romance; this book is well-written and has a fresh plot that I can honestly say I haven’t read before. I loved Delaney and Alderic, they are both survivors and despite the stigma of their professions, are extremely good people. You can’t help but root for their HEA! This book has a bit of everything, grief, taboos, secrets, great secondary characters, a really nasty villain, steamy love scenes and finally a hard-won HEA. As with the last book, I do wish there was an epilogue, as the author seems to draw out the final scene to the very last page and then ending the book rather abruptly. Overall, this was a good read, and it is loosely connected to the author’s previous book “Precious Burdens” but doesn’t seem to be part of a series. So, if you are looking for something a bit different that doesn’t follow the typical HR formula, I would recommend giving this story a try!

*I am voluntarily leaving a review for an eARC that I requested and was provided to me by the publisher/author. All opinions in this review are my own. *