I was really offput by the male voice and then change to the female British voice and I never recovered. Like throughout the whole listening I could not enjoy it. I didn't expect the story to be the best, but I was really excited to enjoy it but the narrator really threw me for a loop. Story wise there is someone who fought against the government and is used by men of power and now she is at the mercy of one that isn't particularly interested in her, but her feistiness appeals to him? I just kept taking breaks and coming back to it and couldn't fully finish it in the end.

This collection was fun to read! I wasn't quite sure what to expect -- I had a feeling that this was a Regency collection, but was pleasantly surprised to find out that it took place it today's times! The Ravensdales consist of of identical twins Julius and Jake and younger sister Miranda. They're all anit-love and anit-marriage due to their parents, both actor in London and NY. Boy do they get their comuppances. Enter Holly, who comes to Julius as a housekeeper as part of her community service; Leandro. along-time friend of the family who had to overcome Miranda's teenage promise to a dying first love; and Jasmine, who has a love/hate relationship with Jake dating back to her teen years. All of them fight loe and marriage, but ultimately have happy-ever-afters.

The narrator, Carolyn Morris, was fantastic; her British accent made this sound like the story took place in the 1800s instead of the 2000s --fantastic.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for early access to this collection.

Ravensdale's Defiant Captive (book 1)

Overall: 2.5 rounded to ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Readability: 📖📖 (nothing was wrong with the writing/book format, I just really didn’t like it and was so angry I was reading it for the first half)
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔
Tension: ⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋 (I like just a touch more explicit details and emotional pull in my scenes)
Intimate Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑 (some of these are on the light /short side)
Steam Scale (Number of Scenes): 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Humor: A bit, though much of it is an enemies to lovers banter (more on her side)
Perspective: third person from both the hero and heroine
More character focused or plot focused? character
How did the speed of the story feel? medium
When mains are first on page together: almost immediately, 1% (chapter 1)
Cliffhanger: No, this ends with a happily ever after for the mains
Epilogue: No

Should I read in order?
This is the first in Milburnes’ Ravensdale Scandals series.

Basic plot:
Holly needs to work for a month at Julius’s house to avoid prison time and get her life back on track.

Give this a try if you want:
- contemporary romance
- Argentina setting
- employer/employee
- close proximity – she works and lives in his house
- heroine has a criminal record
- celibate hero
- enemies to lovers feelings – on her side. She instigates him
- mid to higher steam – 4ish full scenes but know that some are shorter and close together so this probably will feel a bit lighter than that

Ages:
- hero is early 30s (I think around 33ish), heroine is 25

My thoughts:
If you’re looking for a quick workplace romance with plenty of feisty banter this might be for you!

Like many other reviewers stated, this heroine is so hard to enjoy. And I know as a society and a reading genre, we can be riddled with internalized misogyny and way too hard on our heroines. I wanted to give her all the chances, but for me – this heroine just took it too far and too long.

I totally understand her personality fitting her perfectly with her background and the trauma she had gone through. She had been let down by everyone and had to cut before she was hurt. But I think this could have been established and not drug out through the entire book. Because I wanted to see her vulnerability and I wanted to see them fall for each other, not her bait him and be mean to him the whole time. The other thing is the fact that she kept sensually baiting him, it kind of gave their intimate encounters an ick factor I didn’t really like.

I would have loved to have had the animosity and anger established from her, then a tension build while she slowly lowers her guard. And these things DID happen but it was so late in the story for me – I guess I just wish it had been a bit more balanced.

I did like the ending a lot – but again it felt a bit rushed with the character turnaround and the whole ending wrap up. But it did turn around for me and I started to like both mains by the end.

Awakening the Ravensale Heiress (book 2)

Overall: 4.5 rounded to ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Readability: 📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔
Tension: ⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋💋
Intimate Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑🍑 (this is for the first scene, the second one is shorter)
Steam Scale (Number of Scenes): 🔥🔥 (there’s a shorter scene I didn’t count as a full scene)
Humor: A bit
Perspective: third person from both hero and heroine
More character focused or plot focused? character
How did the speed of the story feel? medium
When mains are first on page together: Immediate
Cliffhanger: No, this ends with a happily ever after
Epilogue: No

Should I read in order?
It’s not totally necessary but you will get better family background if you read book 1 first (book 1 is the brother of this heroine)

Basic plot:
Miranda is asked by her childhood friend Leandro to his French estate to go through his father’s artwork.

Give this a try if you want:
- contemporary romance
- France setting
- heroine is an art restorer
- hero is French Italian
- heroine is British (? I think?)
- some unrequited longing from hero
- overcoming grief is a big point
- size difference – he’s 6’3” and she’s 5’5”
- brother’s best friend
- they’ve known each other their whole lives
- close proximity at the run down French estate
- bit of an age gap – hero is older by 10 years
- celibate heroine
- lower to medium steam – 2ish full scenes in a shorter page count – there was a shorter scene I decided not to count

Ages:
- heroine is 23, hero is 33

My thoughts:
Oh this was a such a difference for me than book 1! I really loved this story.

This story is a childhood friendship/brother’s best friend story filled with delicious close proximity and unrequited longing. It had so many of my favorite things in it and I really enjoyed this read.

Grief does play a central part for both Miranda and Leandro and I was drawn into their emotions and thought it had some great character depth. I loved the time Leandro took with Miranda, I loved the evolution of their friendship turn relationship. I do think the ending felt a bit rushed – it was like they were figuring the ending out and it was over – but this was such an improvement for me from how I felt about book 1.

Engaged to Her Ravensdale Enemy (book 3)

Overall: 3.5 rounded to ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Readability: 📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔
Tension: ⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋 (a lot of these scenes were shorter and not developed like I prefer)
Intimate Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑 (for the more developed ones – the others are like a 1.5/2 ish)
Steam Scale (Number of Scenes): 🔥🔥 (I settled at 2 but it might feel hotter to you – there was a couple scenes that were close together that I combined flames and one that was short and decided not to count)
Humor: A bit – more so if you like that enemies to lovers banter
Perspective: Third person from both hero and heroine
More character focused or plot focused? maybe plot?
How did the speed of the story feel? medium
When mains are first on page together: pretty soon in, chapter 1
Cliffhanger: No, this ends with a happily ever after
Epilogue: No

Should I read in order?
It’s not totally necessary – the romance stands alone – but she does have some minor page time in book 2. The series covers the Ravensdale family (with book 1 being about this book’s hero’s twin brother, book 2 being about the sister who is friends with this heroine) and they are quick reads if you’d like to get a feel for the whole family dynamics and read in order.

Basic plot:
When Jasmine’s third engagement falls through, she ropes childhood friend, Jake, into a fake engagement with her to make her ex jealous.

Give this a try if you want:
- contemporary romance
- wedding gown designer that loves weddings
- fake engagement
- enemies to lovers vibes
- bit of an age gap – hero is older by 10 years
- bit of second chance feels – she had a crush on him when she was a teenager but he rejected her
- one bed
- friend of the family – they’ve been friends since children
- best friend's brother
- low to medium steam – multiple scenes but some are close together and some are shorter so I settled at a 2 flame rating

Ages:
- heroine is 23, I think hero is around 33

My thoughts:
I wasn’t in love with this one in the first half. It has enemies to lovers feels with light second chance (she had a childhood crush…) and I’ve just been struggling with those elements. There’s a lot of snark between them and I just wasn’t feeling the tension.

But I felt like this book started to turn around for me a bit by the end. I did love how at the end, Jake is just an emotional disaster. It’s what helped me round up my rating a bit because a man that’s an absolute mess for his partner always melts me. I enjoyed him not being able to function without her 😆

This set of books was wonderful, interesting, and full of spice. The stories follow 3 siblings as they find their perfect person. The stories follow a vague link to fairytales set in modern times with an overriding theme of when you give the right person a chance and get to know who they really are you might find your person. In 2 of the stories the couples have previous history of some form but in all 3 stories there are tragic backstories at play with possessive main male characters who will do anything for the woman they love. Overall it was a great collection of stories and I definitely want to see what the next books hold for the Ravensdale brood.
The narrator did a great job bringing the characters to life with strong voice acting that feels right for the characters.

These books do a good job of providing the steamy, aspirational experience readers expect from Harlequin Presents. Unfortunately, I found some of the content troubling. In “Ravensdale’s Defiant Captive,” Julius manhandles Holly roughly enough to leave marks, and even though he apologizes profusely, that rules him out as a romance hero for me. In “Engaged to Her Ravensdale Enemy,” it’s revealed that when Jasmine was a teenager and Jake was in his twenties, she had flirted with him, and he had flirted back. Even if he eventually rejected her, that kind of behavior is not okay. These books feel like they’re going down a dark romance path, and if that’s an itch they’re looking to scratch, that’s fine! It’s just not for me. I enjoyed the audiobook narration, but this was a DNF.