The most handsome man in England (or close enough) naturally used many ploys to beat back marriage minded mamas. His most ingenious? An absentee fiance. Only now when he really does want to get engaged, his lady love is desperate to confirm for herself that the mysterious ex isn’t broken hearted over the unannounced end of engagement between herself and Mr. Trevalyn.
Really, Leigh makes it much more clear than my recap, I promise, in this delightful Regency novella. Fast paced and quick witted, its starts with the Hero. But in reality, this is the heroine’s story.
Amelia is everything little lovely Lucy, Trevalyn’s would be wife, is not. She is dark, country born and bred, and at a spinsterish age. She also laughs openly at “improving” literature written for young ladies and frequently finds a reason to pick a brawl with her neighbor and old friend, Hugh Trevalyn.
The end, of course, is a foregone conclusion but I still shy away from spoiling too much. I will say that we have two fine examples of “managing” females and their skillful handling of those around them is laugh out loud funny.
The author sent me this short and sweet gem of novella and I breezed through it trying to clear the backlog, and ended up with a bit of a crush, really.
Not for Trevalyn, whose saturine looks are my usual cup of tea, but for Leigh’s no nonsense style. Her cracking dialogue moves the pace right along, where other authors might linger too much in the details. The history is researched, but casually placed enough that I know this lady knows her stuff, and the Regency era, while not pivotal to the plot, is more than window dressing.
My biggest complaint was I wanted to dive a bit deeper, particularly into Amelia’s backstory as she was an interesting, yet historically believable, character. I think the author did a great job cramming a lot in to the short format, so no fault of hers, I was just enjoying it so much I wanted to read more.
Lucy, a very Heyer-esque foil, was also interesting to me and I would have loved to see her story reach a happy conclusion.
This is a great Regency novella I highly recommend for those truncated reading days when you want a quick fix of some sweet, clean romance. Also a great read for teens with a nice message about friendships being the best foundation for romance.
4.75 out of 6, this airy novella is perfect for the sweet fix of Regency when time is wasting. My biggest complaint: I wanted more!
| Content Rating/Heat Index | |
|---|---|
| Mature Content |   |
| Light adult subject matter | |
| Intimacy | |
| Brief kissing | |
| Violence | |
| None | |
| Overall |  |
|---|---|
| Recommended for teens and above. Clean with minimal adult subject matter. | |
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*A review copy was provided by author. No other compensation was provided.
