Alexandra Vasti’s exclusively released duology deserves all the accolades it has received. It has all the swoon of the swashbuckling, rakish heroes I read during my teen years. It has all the laughter and banter of my favorite rom coms. It has all the insight and deft craft of books by some of my favorite authors, especially Laura Kinsale, Judith Ivory and Meredith Duran.It takes the typical plot formula used in historical romance and completely upends it. In the most wonderful ways. In Which Margo Halifax Earns Her Shocking ReputationIn Margo’s book, the rakish hero we typically encounter becomes a hooligan of a heroine whose brash youth seems ill-advised in retrospect. Margo’s youthful shenanigans have ensured she’ll be enshrined as enviable and enticing. But all of the decisions she took such pride in, and the conventions she was so eager to flout, are now the very things that will hem in the expectations and future of both she and her sister. Unless she steps in to rescue her twin fron certain disaster.The last travel companion on earth she expected to accompany her ends up sitting across from her. The one man whose approbation she feels like she’s never earned - even though she’s always sought it. The one man who drives her to be even more reckless - for reasons she doesn;t care to examine very closely. A series of calamitous accidents ensures Margo and Henry are thrown together in ways they never imagined. Ways that end in laughter and grass stains. Ways that will win over the heart she’s kept behind a fortress, enlighten Henry’s virgin sensibilities, and leave them both breathless in the wake of delightful exertions in the great wide open. Exertions that are revelations and epiphanies because they realize this is just the beginning of their journey together.TROPES: Roadtrip, brother’s best friend, opposites attract, virgin hero. My favorite quotes: She was inside him, too, under his skin, in his heart, and he could not separate his want and his love and his need for her. He could not take a breath without her scent in his nose, and when he pulled back and drove hard into her body, her hips met his stroke for stroke, two halves made one.He was so good at listening, so patient and diligent and earnest. And more, she was learning, much more than she’d known, more playful and relentless and demanding. So many facets of him, newly brought into the light and shimmering in it.“I bring irises to Number Twelve because they’re the color of your eyes. I didn’t take the position with Chatham’s in Bath because I didn’t want to move—not if you were in London. I buy the fruit-sellers out of cherries all summer long because they make me think of you, and most of the time I think of nothing else.”In Which Matilda Halifax Learns the Value of RestraintMattie and Christian have a special place in my heart. Especially since they share the given names of the one true pairing from one of my favorite books of all time- Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale. And there’s also the fact that Christian reminds me of one of my favorite heroes from Julie Anne Long’s Pennyroyal Green series - the enigmatic Alexander Montcrieffe, Duke of Falconbridge.Matilda is the less reckless of the twins - by a slim margin. She’s fantasized what the touch of the man society calls demon and depraved would feel like against her skin. She can’t help but notice the color of his eyes and the way he seems to have been formed by divine hands as an instrument of pleasure and temptation. Her fascination leads to an unintentional depiction of him indulging in scandalous pursuits. And when she is determined to compensate him for the injury she’s caused, he rebuffs her. He believes she’s too innocent for his appetites - despite any wildness of spirit she may claim. She’s determined to rectify her mistake and offers up herself as an art tutor to his sister. She finally coerces him into relenting - but only because he is appalled at his own drunken overtures. The roadtrip that ensues is the definition of torture for the both of them. The close scent of anticipation and arousal in the carriage all the way from London to Northumberland. The way he refers to her as “my wife”, his reading spectacles. Her dextrous, cunning mind and her soft heart and the two freckles beneath her right ear. They discover that the convenient situation they’ve agreed to, the necessity of it, isn’t enough to quell the desire for more. They discover that they have more in common than not. That they have more to offer each other than anyone else. More sanctuary. More empathy. More acceptance. The feelings that awaken between them are undeniable and insurmountable - what choice do they have but surrender?TROPES: Age Gap; Roadtrip; Soulmates My favorite quotes: His mind fled from the old hurt, like fingers from a flame, and when he closed his eyes, there was nothing waiting for him in the warm darkness but Matilda’s smile.Later he would regret it. Later he would lie awake and think about how wrong it was for him to hold her, how dangerous it was, how little he had left to lose, and how closely and ferociously he guarded what was left. Later. Later he could think that he’d made a mistake, his arms around Matilda, the waterfall a distant gallop in his ears and the taste of the wine they’d shared still in his mouth.“I know you, Christian de Bord. I want you as you are, with all your scowls and your looming. I like your dreadful old house and your absurd reaction to cats. I see all the kindness and carefulness and love that you try so hard to hide.”