In books, television and movies I love gray characters. I don't mean mole people who never see the sun, but those who are complicated (mostly because that's how real people are) and who aren't wholly good or wholly bad. Meredith Duran has written a romance that has both a heroine and a hero who are definitely in the gray category and they are all the more intriguing for it.
Jane Mason inherited a large amount of money from her parents. Unfortunately she can only get access to it if she marries and her scheming uncle is determined to see her marry his son so that the money stays under his control. Because her family keeps her mired in the country Jane has little to entertain her sharp intellect, though she is fascinated, in a repulsed kind of way, by Crispin Burke, a powerful politician who will stop at nothing (apparently) to achieve his goal of becoming prime minister. Though she can't stand the man, Jane is reluctantly willing to cooperate with his plotting if it means she can finally escape.
I mentioned gray characters, but initially Crispin seems pretty black. He wields his power pitilessly, using bribery and blackmail to control his fellow politicians. When one of his investigations leads to an assault that leaves him in a coma for a month, Crispin wakes a changed man. Not because he suddenly sees the error of his ways, but because he can't remember the last five years of his life, including how he came to be married to Jane. If you can't remember that you were a bad guy, are you still one? That is a question with which Jane and Crispin, as he comes to learn who he was, wrestle. Jane begins to like, and maybe even love, the new Crispin, but she fears that he will revert to who he was when his memories return. And if he reverts, what will the old Crispin do when he finds out the true circumstances of their marriage?
It's pretty clear early on that Crispin is not a great guy, but the author does a wonderful job of showing the reader how he got there and how it might be possible for that to change. Jane is not lily-white either. She makes some pretty big choices that have major impacts on others for the sake of her own needs. And though she has honorable ideals, she learns how easy it is to slip into shortcuts and compromise in service of those ideals. Intense and satisfying.