Scandalous Alchemy

I enjoyed this alternate historical romance, set in a Europe where Napoleon prevailed over Wellington; it's interesting to consider how the balance of power would have shifted, and gives a welcome twist on Regency tropes. The political intrigue took second place to the characters, who were pretty standard types (attractive rake with an underlying yen for commitment, feisty girl with a guilty secret) yet I grew fond of them anyway. I raced through the last 100 pages to find out what happened to them, even though I was sure the right ones would end up together and the bad ones would be punished, given the genre. I had not realized that this is a follow-up to two earlier novels, which give some important background. (There's no indication that I noticed that one character is Black, for instance.) A series that will give a lot of pleasure to Regency fans, in a much darker and grittier strain than Georgette Heyer but still with relatively happy endings.