If I hadn’t come to expect more from Long, I would probably enjoy the book more. But knowing Long’s talent, and the unusual plot’s potential, at about the halfway mark I’m a little disappointed.

Yeah, that’s exactly it. If I hadn’t read this author before, I would probably be glad to discover her with this book, and file her name away in my head as someone to buy and read again. It’s only when you consider the enormous talent she displayed in her Holt sisters trilogy, and the tremendous potential a plot as creative as this one has, that The Perils of Pleasure becomes a little disappointing.

As for Madeleine in The Perils of Pleasure, most of the time she was pretty believable as someone who could rescue men from jail. Long did a good job of showing her toughness and when her past was revealed, the way she came to be someone who people hired to do things like that was convincing too. The problem for me with her character was actually the reverse; it was the early moments of softness that were unconvincing and seemed contrived. They also seemed like they might have been put in there to signal to readers that this character was sympathetic despite her steely exterior. I felt that her POV and her past did that far more effectively.

This one doesn’t sound as appealing to me because of the heroine. She seems a little unrealistic, running around rescuing men from jail. I think I’d probably have the same problems you did with her character.