This book was well written and intriguing and satisfying but also upsetting. I was not expecting to be so surprised by the disgusting abusive behavior of some of the new characters based on the more predictable plots of previous books in the series. It wasn't an entirely unwelcome change because I imagine it was realistic, just disturbing and hard to reconcile. 
The second epilogue should have had a trigger warning about the very explicit though probably  realistic blood and bodily harm to a character I'm sure many readers, like myself, will have grown a significant amount of love and empathy for (which does make the events harder to stomach). I threw up and had to skip ahead enough to not risk seeing any more so I am not exactly sure what I missed but I'm sad that I won't know the whole truth about the ending even if I stayed shaking and faint for awhile after. 
Still, I give this book a 4.5 and tip my hat to Julia Quinn for writing a captivating series. 

Meh. Not a lot of steam way too much drama. I don't like Gregory. He's a stalker, ties Lucy up in a not sexy way, and believes he can own whatever woman he wants even if they don't want him. There's LGBTQ representation but Gregory is kinda terrible to him. But at least they don't make him the bad guy, progress? It's rushed in the end but so slow the rest of the book. I have mixed feelings about Lucy. She's supposedly close to her family/found family but doesn't know them at all.

Herminoe/her brother, Her father, and Uncle. Both her brother and uncle treat her like shit. It doesn't take much for her to believe her father is a traitor. It's so clear it was really her uncle that she comes off super naive.

She knows she going to marry this one guy but never meets him, writes to him, or tries to learn anything about him till a week before their wedding. All of the men in this treat Lucy and women in general so terribly to make Gregory look like a hero. I hate the epilogues in this one. There's no Whisledown or Lady Danbury. How does it compare to the rest of the books? Not well.
Best to Worse
1,3,7, The ones you should read.
6,4,2,8, 5