Series Name: Bow Street Runners, # 1
From the moment Grant Morgan saw the woman, he knew that – despite her beauty – she would never be any man’s bride.
Someone to Watch Over Me captivated me right from the first page.
Grant Morgan is one of London’s most eligible and unattainable bachelors. He’s also a powerful member of the Bow Street Runners, and when he’s called to the waterfront late one night to investigate a drowning victim, Grant is stunned to recognize the face of Vivien Rose Duvall, a well-known woman of the night. He’s even more startled when he realizes that she’s alive. With no one to care for her, Grant carries Vivien to his home and revives her, only to learn that she is suffering from amnesia.
Vivien hesitantly accepts her handsome rescuer’s claim that she is his mistress, despite her misgivings about her true identity. Nevertheless, she can’t deny the marks on her throat that prove her near-drowning in the Thames was not an accident, and now she must trust the man who claims her as his paramour, for her life is in danger. As Grant searches for Vivien’s attacker, the two find themselves falling in love, all the while struggling to stay one step ahead of the evil forces that will stop at nothing to see Vivien dead.
I have been reading Lisa’s books for years. They are some of my favourite books to get lost in. I’ve read the Hathaway, Wallflower, and Ravenal series multiple times. But for some reason, I’ve never read the Bow Street Runners series before, I don’t know why.
This book has quickly become one of my top five all-time favourite, Lisa Kleypas’s books! Lisa knows how to hook her readers in and keep them engaged with the story until the very end. Someone To Watch Over Me is the first book in the Bow Street Runners series and is also my favourite book in this series. Each book can be read as a stand-alone. I read books two and three before diving into the first book.
Gosh, the first chapter in this book just captured my attention and had me saying, “holy smokes!” We meet Grant, who is Bow Street Runner; he has been summoned to the shoreline of the Thames because someone has found a dead body. Grant realizes that the dead person is actually Vivien and that she is very much alive. Grant decides that the best course of action is to take Vivien to his house until he can figure out who is trying to kill her. However, when Vivien wakes up, she has no idea who she is and doesn’t recognize Grant or who is trying to kill her. As soon as I was done with the first chapter, I knew that I would be up for the rest of the night reading this book because I needed to know what would happen next.
This book has some delicious twists and turns in it. It’s one of Lisa’s more action-packed mystery romances, which I always adore. It’s hard to believe, but this was my first amnesia historical romance book. I have come to realize that I enjoy this trope. When Vivien wakes, she has no idea who she is and spends most of the book trying to remember her past. Lisa puts this interesting twist on this amnesia trope in that Vivien is horrified when Grant tells her that she is an escort and goes into detail about what kind of person she is. Vivien has a hard time accepting that she is an escort, and part of her doesn’t know if she wants to remember her past. I loved Vivien. She is a mysterious character that you want to figure out. Her actions and personality in the book contradicted the picture Grant painted for us of Vivien at the beginning of the book. We are told that Vivien is this cold-hearted, cruel, sensual woman that only cares for herself. But the Vivien we meet and spend time with is a kind, caring, bookworm, and loving person. I found myself questioning which personality was the real Vivien, which was something that Grant was also struggling with. Lisa threw in this substantial and fantastic twist near the end of the book that I was not expecting, and it blew my socks off.
Someone to Watch Over Me is a treasure trove of tropes. There are enemies to lovers, revenge, forced proximity, mistaken identity, and of course, amnesia. I could not get enough of Grant and Vivien. Grant spends a lot of this book struggling with this new Vivien. He does not like her at the beginning of this book. One of the reasons why he brought her to his house was to woo her until she wanted to bed him. Then he was going to reject her like she rejected him a few months ago. Grant knows he is falling in love with this version of Vivien, but he doesn’t know if she is putting on an act or if this is the real Vivien. I devoured that internal struggle Grant was going through. He had no idea how to handle this emotional and physical response Vivien was drawing from him. These two were so wonderful together. The chemistry was there, and the conversation was witty and heartfelt. That sexual build-up between these two is perfect.
Someone to Watch Over Me is the perfect love story proving that Lisa Kleypas is the queen of historical romances.
