My Irresistible Earl by Gaelen Foley

When Jordan, Earl of Falconridge, bumps into his first love, Mara, Lady Pierson after twelve long, secretive years, the spark they once shared is brought back to life. Mara is attending an auction to secure a gift for her friend, Prinny, the Prince Regent while Jordan is their on his mission to find out more about the Prometheans and his undercover work for the Inferno Club. Mara is shocked to see Jordan after all these years and is not about to let him back into her life after he deserted her when she needed him the most to escape her cruel mother. Jordan and Mara meet just at the time when he was being called off to duty for his undercover work as a spy, for which he had trained his young life for, and even though he wanted to marry Mara first, he knew his duty had to come first. Mara marries swiftly afterwards to have her own home away from her nitpicking mother and finds herself in a loveless marriage with a man that dislikes her and drinks his life away. Thankfully, she is able to conceive Thomas, who is now her whole life.

As Jordan and Mara are tentatively feeling out their new relationship, brought more into focus after Jordan rescues Mara from an attack on her carriage because people think she is Prinny mistress as she spends alot of time with him (he is really just Thomas' godfather and they are just friends), Jordan is dealt a new mission....to spend more time with Mara and use her connections with Prinny to gain access to a select card game with one of the clubs prime persons of interest. Jordan wants to refuse but knows he has to accept and does so while he and Mara continue to redevelop their love for each other.

After Jordan decides he needs a bit of a break from Mara, to protect her, Mara takes matters into her own hands and finds Jordan and breaks up an important conversation he is having and he loses his cool with her. She flees and decides she is done with him again and feels her heart breaking. She agrees to hear Jordan out the next day and he confesses his past and reasons for his anger to her. Mara is naturally shocked to find out Jordan is a spy and quickly connects the dots of her and her relationship with the Prince Regent and is furious. Thankfully, this misunderstanding does not last long and the story continues on to quite a satisfactory end, and a cliffhanger epilogue for the next book!

Out of the three Inferno books out so far, this one was my favorite. The first one, My Wicked Marquess sort of set up the premise for this series and the second, My Dangerous Duke , it took me a bit to warm up to the scary duke and the virgin sacrifice plot, but this one is a wonderful story of young love triumphing in the end. While you could read this as a stand alone, there is a continuing plot throughout that may make more sense by reading the previous books. I am really looking forward to the next book featuring the wounded Drake! Some bits and pieces were revealed in this book that should make his story fascinating! My Irresistible Earl offers a great story of love, plenty of twists and turns and intrigue and it kept me wanting to ignore my kids and finish reading it! 4 solid stars for this one
I received this ebook via netgalley.com