Evangeline Jones has built her reputation as a spiritualist, but Alex is determined to expose her as a fraud. With her livelihood at stake, she strikes a deal with Alex to give him one week of close observation to either catch her in the act or else never bother her again. But the deal grows complicated as they both develop feelings for each other as they are each forced to choose between loyalty and happiness.

I loved the historical elements of this book. The focus on spiritualism really got me interested, and the author definitely shows she researched the subject well. The relationship was a bit rushed for my tastes, but there was still strong chemistry and aspects of slow burn to keep me invested in the romance. The conflict was well-rooted within the world and the characters and not easy to resolve without hard decisions, which made the book improve significantly as the story progressed. I was invested right to the end, and I plan on reading the author’s first book in this series soon.

This was so much fun!!! It amde me curious about the first book too. A bit long but I loved the writing and the romance.

Ahhhh this was just such a great book. I just was entranced by this story and these characters. I look forward to seeing what happens next.

This book was a miss for me and while it does appear to be well written I didn't connect to the characters and was disinterested in their story. The story felt very long, the pacing was a little off. I could have done with a lot less of the inner monologues that took up much of this book. there was more tell than show when it came to the author writing about the characters' attraction to each other and it left me feeling like the relationship was forced. this is one i cant recommend. 

I received an arc of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Really enjoyed this book.

Steamy book with characters from different classes. Unique character (medium, spiritualist), a bet, darker story...read it in one day!

I read a lot of historical romance so when an author can bring something new to the genre, I'm there for it. Julia Bennet did just that and did it well.

I received this from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.. This was a hard read for me. It didn’t move along very well for me. It was slow and just didn’t pull me in.

Cute, fun and entertaining! Evie is a 'medium' who's worked her way up from the streets, but the Duke is determined to expose her as a fraud..

A fun historical romp. I really enjoyed this one so much I bought the first book in the series.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

I read this ARC for an honest review
All thoughts and opinions are mine

I love historical romance and always love to find a new author in the genre.

This is an amalgam of mystery and romance - I found the first half really moved along and the last half plodded a little - overall I enjoyed it

This is part of a series and I will be looking out for the others

3.5 stars

The Ruin of Evangeline Jones is book 2 in the Harcastle Inheritance series and although I didn't read book 1 it read fine as a standalone. Evangeline Jones is a young woman with a sad past trained to do cons as a medium. Alex is a Duke who just inherited his dukedom but has no interest in it because his passion is uncovering frauds and he has set his eyes on Evie. This was definitely an insta love/lust type of situation which worked fine for me. I thought some of the language felt more like a contemporary romance but it didn't take away from my enjoyment. There were times that I found myself bored but overall I thought it was an enjoyable read.

Loved, loved loved this one, and I am so happy that I’ve discovered this author. She writes unusual and angsty HR’s with a hint of darkness, I loved her first book, about Alex’s sister which I also got to review, and this one was deliciously satisfying and equally enjoyable.

Alex is a duke who should be concentrating on his dilapidated estates and trying to find a wealthy heiress to repair his finances. However, Alex is obsessed with hunting down charlatans and crooks that profess to be Spiritualists and mediums and he has Evangeline Jones in his sights. He is determined to expose her as a fraud, and is secretly obsessed with a photograph he has of her.

Evangeline has lived on the streets alone as a young child, and has struggled and fought her way up to being a medium. She is determined to stand up to Alex, and not give up her work and financial stability, she can also see that he is attracted to her underneath his animosity, and she is determined to win, despite the fact that she is also fascinated by him. When they agree to a wager, he has a week to prove her a fraud, and if he fails he will leave her alone, and if he succeeds she will retire and make a public statement exposing her tricks.

What neither of them expect is the growing feelings between them, as they spend time together their mutual attraction blossoms into love, but a lowly charlatan cannot marry a duke, and a duke has a responsibility towards his tenants, his descendants and his estates, and Alex must marry for money.

As they grow closer, they realise someone has brought them together for a sinister purpose, how can they discover what is happening, and how does it tie up with the incarceration of Alex’s half sister.

This was so brilliant, the dark edge of obsession with Evangeline’s photograph, the intense and arrogant Duke, slowly but surely broken open by his love for Evangeline. I loved they way that Julia was able to develop his character, and his intensity and eventual tenderness with Evangeline.

Evangeline herself was a fabulous character, with a truly destitute background, she had built herself a life with a bit of help, but although she has to make a living, and she is beholden to and scared of her so called business partner, she has a certain honour and kindness not knocked out of her, and a strong grasp on the realities and cruelties of life in Victorian England. She wants to escape this life, and has been plotting to for some time, but Alex’s intervention could help her to leave the country with enough money to make a life somewhere else.

When the net tightens and they are in danger, can they work out a way to be together, or does Evangeline have to leave to protect Alex.

This was a romance with a similar dark edge and gothic atmosphere of Kerrigan Byrne, Amanda Quick, Cecilia Grant and Elizabeth Hoyt’s Maiden Lane series, and I loved it.

Highly recommended- you won’t be disappointed.

I voluntarily reviewed an advance reader copy of this book and all opinions are my own.

Alex and Evangeline are not your usual historical romance couple. Evangeline is a women who spent part of her youth in a brothel. She then was taken in by a charletaine when she was twelve. She's a virgin but between living part of her life in a brothel and living in very rough places she has a lot of sexual knowledge. Alex is not always likeable. He's extremely inflexible in his beliefs. He's not close to really anyone other than his sister and her husband. Initially he's out to discredit Evangeline. Eventually he finds himself falling in love with her. There's a decent bit of mystery to this story. I found the end especially to be unexpected. Although there's tons of chemistry between Evangeline and Alex it's very restrained because they both think their relationship won't work out. It's about of a slow burn story because of it. I really enjoyed this book. Considering this is the authors sophomore release it's extremely well written. It's not a typical Duke in love story. Some people may not like the unexpectedness of it but I personally enjoyed that. To me it's definitely worth a try to read Julia Bennet as a new author.

I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to the publisher for providing me an e-ARC of this book on NetGalley!

I just want to take a second to talk about this cover. The teals and the gold compliment each other so well. I just wish I had enjoyed this book a little more so I’d have reason to display this on my shelves. It wasn’t a bad book by any means, but there were a few gripes I had while reading.

Let’s start with what I enjoyed while reading this novel. The concept is very cool. I haven’t read a historical romance that involves a spiritualist. It was really interesting to see how the author explained certain tricks our main heroine accomplished with the very few technologies they had at the time in order to fool people into believing she truly was speaking to the dead. The author does a great job of describing each setting extremely well too. It was such an atmospheric read with scenes taking place everywhere between grand mansions and the underbelly of London. I also felt like we were always deeply in the heads of each character as well. We always knew what they were thinking and their motivations for each action they performed. However, this leads me into my biggest gripe.

This book was way too long. The inner monologue of each character took up most of each and every chapter. I understood it at the beginning. It gave us a nice base-line of understanding who our characters were, why they were acting the way they were, why they were attracted to each other, etc. But by the end of the novel, these same concepts kept coming up in each inner monologue to the point where I had to skim the last 20%. Sometimes, I’d begin reading these paragraphs of inner turmoil that went on and on for pages, but it didn’t give me anything new each time so I just had to give up. I think this led to me not really feeling the chemistry between the characters because we were told a million times they were attracted to each other but I didn’t feel it. I also didn’t understand the motivations of our hero character most of the time and they were explained by the end but, it didn’t satisfy me.

Overall, this author is a great writer. She obviously knows her craft well and she definitely knows how to explain her characters motivations. However, I think this book could have benefited from some serious editing. When I’m reading a historical romance novel, I just don’t need so much exposition. Of course, this is a completely personal opinion so if that’s something you do enjoy, I’d recommend you pick this up! You may enjoy it more than I did. I also want to mention there was a queer female side character in this book, which I’ve never seen in historical romance so huge props to the author for including that representation. I hope the author chooses to write her story in this series, I would 1000% pick up her next book if that’s who it will be about. If you’ve read this one, let me know what you thought!

i always forget how much i love victorian era set stories. especially those that delve into the victorian fascination with spiritualism and the occult. there's just something so entrancing about this moment of time, and i enjoyed the ruin of evangeline jones quite a bit because of it.

that said, i wish the pacing on this had been a little tighter. how these two reach their happily ever after isn't the most common way, and there's enough uncertainty where one could argue that it's more a happy for now. but even so, it's romantic and swoony and all the things you want in a historical.

**the ruin of evangeline jones will publish on april 27, 2020. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/entangled publishing in exchange for my honest review.

This was an enjoyable book. I loved the gothic atmosphere. The heroine, Evie, was interesting and not your usual historical romance heroine. She was mysterious and flawed. At some points in the story I felt that it could have been edited better.
Thank you for the ARC. This is my honest review.

I am not sure how I feel about this book. I had a hard time getting into the story. I found the pacing too slow for my liking. I thought the plot and characters were well developed and interesting. I really wanted to like this book because the plot is interesting, but I continually found myself skipping ahead. I don't think this is a bad read just not one for me. It is interesting just too slow.

Historical romance is one of my favorite genres and I love finding stories that are a little bit different. Granted this one had the main character being a duke. Lord, there just aren't that many dukes out there, but I understand in romance fantasy land all handsome main male characters are dukes, just as in contemporary romance they are all billionaires.



This story is great mixture of romance and suspense, at least for the first part. I found the last half dragged a bit. OK it dragged a lot.



The story is set in 1888 and our hero is a duke that enjoys exposing mediums and the like as frauds. So you can only guess what Evie is? I loved the seances and whatnot that Alex was out to expose.



However once you get to middle of the book where, a good portion of Evie's job isn't as important, well the book loses something. It switches focus to the man who shaped Evie into the charlatan that she is.



It makes the story interesting but it also takes so long to get to fruition, and in between its just a whole lot of sex with Alex and Evie and their romance isn't very exciting, because they are really a couple that shouldn't be.



The way the get their HEA was unique though. I won't give it away because it really is different for a historical romance.



This book is part of a series, but is definite able to be read as a stand alone.



Both main characters were interesting, though I almost wish they would have remain friends because their romance was the lackluster part. However I loved getting to know Alex's sister Helen, and I will definitely go back and read her book, which was the first in the series.



Definitely recommended!

Five out of five stars! I loved this book so much.

I really enjoyed both the main characters. They were strong and yet had had the desire to change themselves for the better.

The ending really won me over. I don't want to give away any spoilers but I found the end to be nontraditional and a little controversial... But amazing!

If you are looking for a little Victorian romance with an edge twist, I highly recommend Julia Bennet’s books!

A very different plot that was entertaining and educational. I found myself really liking Evangeline and empathising with her path in life. Alex felt a little eh for me due to his attitude, but he grew on me. Overall, good read with lots of passion and interesting tidbits.

The ruin of Evangeline Jones by Julia Bennet is a sexy, beautiful written and interesting historical romance book with great characters and gothic elements that I enjoyed reading in one sitting and I had to recommend it. I haven’t read anything by the author before but one of my favourite historical romance authors has recommended it as well and had to read it. I’m looking forward to more by the author and I hope someone else will enjoy it as much as I did.