His Ample Desire by Terri MacKenzie
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Cover: 5/5
Story: 4/5
Steam: 🔥 🔥(+kissing, scenes mentioned but not detailed)
Ending: HEA with Epilogue
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England, Regency (1815)
Wealthy Bookish Gentleman
Very Merry Widow
Plus-Sized Heroine
Possessive Hero
Poetry in Bed
Second Chance-ish
He Needs a Wife
Mature MCs (35F/30M)
Cinna-Dom Hero
Mistress
Supportive Friends
Child in Plot
Positive Menstruation Representation
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Stand Alone or Series: Can be read as a stand-alone.
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His Ample Desire is a quick, lightly steamy Regency historical romance with a dash of second chance-ish feels. Desire features a plus-sized, infamous widow in her mid-thirties and a wealthy, bookish gentleman who won't stop until she is his. This novella dips its toes into some light dom/sub dynamics, a mistress agreement, and positive menstruation representation. As Desire features a stunning, plus-sized Heroine, MacKenzie keeps her physical nature at the forefront of her writing ensuring that readers can keep an accurate description of the heroine in mind throughout the title. As the representation of plus-sized heroines in the main draw to the Curves & Cravats series, I give MacKenzie a large round of applause.
While the overall tone of the title is relatively lighthearted, it does touch on some more serious, difficult themes. MacKenzie does a skillful job at balancing the scales to keep the overall chord even-keeled. As the page length denotes this title as a novella, it was wise to not allow the feeling of the novella to take a full-blown nose dive into a complex, deeply dark direction as there would have not been enough time to adequately process the emotions and difficulties. Mackenzie makes excellent use of the novella length to create a believable and passionate romance with a charming HEA.
There truly isn't much to not enjoy about our hero, George. He is a bookish gentleman with a merry dash of Cinna-dom mixed in. Besotted is the best way to describe George's feelings towards Caroline. He is utterly intoxicated by her beauty and her mind. Likewise, against what she feels is her better judgment, Caroline is truly enamored with George. As a "merry widow," Caro has always kept her assignation strictly physical, but she swiftly finds herself breaking every single one of her rules surrounding being a mistress. In the end, George shows his true devotion to Caro- past, present, and future- leading to a swoony HEA for the two of them.
For me, the epilogue felt out of place- it is extremely far-fetched. Had the entire book had this feeling, it wouldn't have felt out of place. While the epilogue gives the reader what we hope would happen, the unrealistic feeling doesn't make the relatively realistic tone of the rest of the book.
In terms of steam, Mackenize dips her toes into some lighter dom/sub dynamics that I feel readers new to that dynamic would feel comfortable with. This is a lighter steam read in terms of full scenes, but there are several mentions of intimate moments not fully on the page. Mackenzie does not add in steam for steam sake, which I enjoyed.
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Read as an ebook.
Honest review left voluntarily.
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Content Warning (may contain spoilers):
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De*th of parent- off page
Mention of pregnancy
Heroine was married to a man 40 years her senior
Abandonment during pregnancy
Financial destitution