Only a fellow romance reader can truly fathom the level of enthusiasm I feel for a marriage of convenience that starts with the awkward, tentative hope of practicality nuptials taking place from Page 1. Not to mention the unbridled joy of a beloved author writing your favorite trope in all its magnificience, but make it set in a Regency Christmas postcard.
Oh my winter wonderland, this was achingly sweet. Just, must read for whenever you feel like floating around on clouds of swoon-inducing sugar plums. In my eternal optimist head, this is how all arranged marriages end up: they just happen to be exactly, perfectly complementary and, after a few highly surmountable bumps and with a little bit of understanding and mutual support, they banter off into the sunset with the kismet of it all. *sigh* They all end up like this, right?
As often our favorite tropes make us into finicky tough customers, I am very particular about my marriage of convenience pacing. But here, just as always, I marvel at how happy Ms. Britton’s progression choices make me, especially getting us there in this shorter format. Plus so many utterly lovely moments with all the holiday magical whimsy.
Tale as old as time: Alone in the world, she needs a rich husband’s protection, and he wants/needs her aristocratic lineage to ascend from workaholic nouveau riche merchant to not-so-leisurely gentleman. Duty calls, let’s put on that ball and chain with a class difference stranger, by all means. Tad is the laser-focused numbers guy who has a whole new world open up to him when his main concerns of crunching figures and shipping schedules shift to overthinking himself into knots about his new wife. Ah, the self-made man and the self-doubt, coiled so tightly and being so endearingly counterproductive in his reactions to her attempts at drawing closer. Turned into a blushing, hot-and-cold bumbler, she’d be justified in telling him to just stick to his ledgers, and yet lonely soul/ buyoant fairy Felicity works on coaxing out both his playful side and his inner-poet. Ugh, they’re just so cute together. The true partnership. The gestures. The declarations. This is when the bantering into the snow-glistening sunset comes in.
So grateful to the author for an ARC! Christmas came early, but I already started my next wishlist: Gimme the Deerwoods, gimme Lord William’s HEA at a Winterway reunion house party!
Content notes: Kissing Only. Vague preoccupation with consummation, married intimacy very vaguely implied. Teensy married innuendo. Mention of infertility (not main character). Mention of parent loss grief.