3.5 Stars!Cooper has blended historical romance with paranormal and created something new and fresh that needs a brand new category to contain it.
The paranormal side of No Proper Lady is dark. Demons being summoned and released on the world resulting in the apocalypse. Enough descriptive detail to give you the chills.
The historical romance side is beautiful in that Joan is a woman who takes nothing for granted and is able to see the world through the eyes of a child yet at the same time with enough experience of the most jaded. Simon sees Joan as a tool to be used in the fight for the greater good, at least at first. Eventually he is able to see past the warrior and into the woman. No other man would have been able to understand Joan's childlike wonder and fierce determination in the way she needed.
This book is a great combination, blended so smoothly the story line flows along without a hitch. It is refreshing to read a paranormal like this, don't pass it up.
(3.5 stars because of the dark chill feeling you will get reading about the spiritual demonic stuff, but that is what Cooper meant for us to feel so perhaps it should be 4 stars...)