A Bittersweet Moment

by Vanessa Riley

A second son must find his place in the world, but can he trust his heart and not the heavy-handed antics of his father, the Earl of Crisdon.

Ewan Fitzwilliam needs his life to change. Unwilling to follow in the footsteps of his abusive father, he gathered the strength to break free. Saving a young flower picker from troubles upon his father's estate may prove the opportunity he needs to become a man of honor.

Theodosia wants a better life, and she intends to build a flower business that caters to the perfumers in Town, but can she trust a rich man's son to teach her better diction to impress potential clients? Or will she learn a different lesson, succumbing to the dangerous attraction she feels for the tortured playwright?


A prequel short story to The Bittersweet Bride

Genres: Historical Romance, Romance, Historical, Novella, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Regency

72 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 7, 2018

About the author

I'm Vanessa Riley, and I write Historical Fiction of dazzling multi-culture communities of the 1750s to 1830s, The Revolutionary Years. I write for readers who treasure and share with friends books that showcase women, power, strong sisterhoods, and love.

Web: https://vanessariley.com
IG: https://www.instagram.com/vanessarile...
FB: https://www.facebook.com/VanessaRiley...

Reviews

[Becky (romantic_pursuing_feels) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Note: Some of my goodreads shelves can be spoilers

Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Readability: 📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞💞
Sensuality: There’s no kisses or bedroom scenes
Sex Scene Length: There are no scenes
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): no scenes
Humor: I don’t recall much
Perspective: Third person from both the hero and heroine
More character focused or plot focused? character
How did the speed of the story feel? slow to medium
When mains are first on page together: Not too far in, about 8%
Cliffhanger: Yes – the story continues in The Bittersweet Bride
Epilogue: No
Format: read owned e-book (it was free)
(Descriptions found at end of my review)

Should I read in order?
This is a nice prequel short story to The Bittersweet Bride (book 1 of Riley’s Advertisements for Love series)

Basic plot:
A wildflower saleswoman meets a playwright who wants more from his gilded cage.

Give this a try if you want:
- Regency (1813)
- Epping, England (outside London) and London setting
- writer hero (and second son of an Earl)
- heroine sells flowers
- short story
- forbidden love
- no steam

Ages:
- hero is 20, heroine is 18

First line:
Something had to change for Ewan Fitzwilliam.

My thoughts:
This is a short story with background for the mains in The Bittersweet Bride.

I am a bit sad I didn’t love this story – I own the Bittersweet Bride and seeing it was second chance, I was hoping by reading this first I would like that trope a bit more than I usually do.

But I found this book pretty slow and uneventful. I...didn’t dislike the mains, but I didn’t love them either. I felt like I barely knew the mains still after this story and didn’t really see their relationship as something that was strong and cemented together before this break that they experience before the next story.

Content warnings: These should be taken as a minimum of what to expect. It’s very possible I have missed some.

- mention of physical abuse by father of hero
- racism (heroine deals with this from a side character)


Extra stuff like what my review breakdown means, where to find me, and book clubs


Full break down on what my ratings above mean here:
Overall: How I felt about it everything considered!
Readability: How ‘readable’ was the book? Did I fly through it? Did I have to tell myself to pick it back up repeatedly? Were any passages confusing? (I will probably score like (1) is literally unreadable due to formatting/typing errors, etc (2) There were lots of errors that made it difficult to read OR It was extremely confusing and I had to reread passages to make sense of it OR I disliked it so much I had to bribe myself to keep reading (3) I didn’t really want to keep reading and would have preferred to abandon the read and start something else OR some minor continuity issues/confusion (4) I liked it fine, maybe a minor error or 2. I was happy to pick it up when I had time. (5) I never wanted to put this down. I thought about it when I wasn’t reading it. I hid in the bathroom from my kids to read. I threw inappropriate food at my children for dinner so I could read instead.)
Feels: Totally subjective to each person but did the book give me any tingles? Any butterflies? Did it rip my heart out (in a good way?)
Emotional depth: How well do I feel I know the characters at the end? How much did I feel their emotions throughout the story?
Sexual tension: Again, subjective, but how strong was the wanting and longing to me between the characters? A book might have strong sexual tension without a single touch.
Romance: Was there romance? Did romantic things happen? This can be actions/words/thoughts of the characters and again is subjective.
Sensuality: This is how the intimate scenes are written. Kisses and sexual scenes – how sensual were they? Were they on the mechanical side? Was there emotional pull tied in? Were the details explicit or flowery? These are subjective but generally (1) too short to get a good judgement (2) not all what I'm looking for - very vague or flowery prose (3) either not explicit enough or not enough emotional pull (too mechanical/physically descriptive without the emotions) (4) what I love in a scene (5) absolute perfection - perfect balance of emotional longing and explicit descriptions
Sex Scene Length: How long the bedroom scenes are (generally (1) is 1-3 sentences (2) is a few paragraphs to a page-ish (3) is about average, a few pages (4) more well developed scenes, quite a few pages with descriptions (4) the majority of the book takes place in the bedroom. This is always hard to tell for me on audio!
Steam Scale: Generally, each flame is a scene. If scenes are super close together I sometimes combine them. If a scene is super short or so vague I don’t know what’s happening, I don’t count it. There’s some levels of grey but generally the number of flames is how many sex scenes there are (I max out at 5 so I’ll put a + after if there’s more than that)


Find me
Instagram || The Storygraph || Bookbub ||

Book Clubs
The Ton and the Tartans (Historical Romance)
Upturned Petticoats and Undone Cravats (Historical Romance with Steam Requirements)
A Love Less Ordinary (Science Fiction, Paranormal, Monster, Fantasy)
Modern Manuscripts (Contemporary Romance)
Words for the Wicked (Contemporary Romance with Steam Requirements)
Vintage Romance (Old School Romance – published 2000 and prior)

[Katy O.]

DNF at 50% of the novella - didn’t work for me. The massive time jumps left way too much unknown

[Nadine Keels · Rating 4 out of 5]

Theodosia aspires to have her own business someday, selling choice flowers to perfumers, but she wants to learn better diction first. Ewan, the second son of an abusive earl, agrees to help Theo while she encourages him in his own dream: to earn his independence with a living as a playwright. But when Theo and Ewan begin falling for each other, their already unusual arrangement becomes even more precarious in A Bittersweet Moment by author Vanessa Riley.

So. While anticipating reading a Regency romance, The Bittersweet Bride, I came across this little prequel number and decided to read it first.

This is one of the authors whose books I dive into with or without at least skimming the book blurb beforehand, so it was an extra treat for me to find out Ewan is a writer. I mean, sensing the agony he feels in the midst of "the odor of the death of words"--you have me right there, from the first page, Mr. Fitzwilliam. Then add to that his sentiment regarding the ignorant way that "men of little vision deal with paper." Good gracious, I love reading about writers.

Even with her determination, her feisty streak, and her reluctance to trust, Theo isn't all sharp edges, which is a plus. Her meeting Ewan isn't an insta-love connection, though when their affection for each other does come up, it does so suddenly, and the descriptions and declarations of love become pretty excessive from there.

Nevertheless, the vocational and romantic plight of these characters has whetted my appetite the more for the related novel.

[Rochelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sweet and innocent

Oh, the love of a young starry-eyed man who believes life can be what he wants, but at a young age, he’s yet to experience the hardships of becoming an adult. I’m straight on to read the next story to find out what happens! This HFN will have you one-clicking so fast your head will swim! Excellent story from Ms. Riley

[Mindy Hardwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a short novella and starts the story of The Bittersweet Bride. I really enjoyed it and am eager the read the series.

[Emelie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The way this short story was structured was... deeply unsatisfying. There were strange time-jumps during which most of the actual building-up of the relationship happened, which led to the relationship just not feeling convincing. Basically this is feels like a draft of the framework of the story, where we get the scenes that would be listed in a full synopsis but nothing of the things in-between the major plot points. The characters are not fleshed out enough to be convincing, and neither is their relationship. Which is disappointing, because intersectional historical romance set in England with a black female MC? Sounds amazing. So it's sad that my first introduction to it would feel so empty and boring. However, this is a short story about characters that do have at least one entire novel (which is a second chance romance I have not read), so there's a chance everything I thought this was missing shows up in that one. So dispite all my complaining, I am willing to give Vanessa Riley - and these under-developed characters - at least one more chance.

[Quinn Fforde · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was very disappointed by this story. I don't think anyone edited it. There were errors and typos all over the place. (I am not counting Theo's misunderstandings, but a playwright should use proper grammar.) I have no idea what the timeline was supposed to be because events seemed to jump around, and the hero was an idiot. I have heard very good things about this author, so I am going on to the novel and hoping that it will be properly edited.

[Diane Rembert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Theodosia is a common woman who is trying to earn a living and ends up falling in love with royalty…Ewan. This beautiful introduction to regency Romance have me Princess Harry and Megan Markle vibes. I'm looking forward to reading more of their story.


I highly recommend this short story by @vanessarileyauthor.

[Deborah Cleaves · Rating 2 out of 5]

Barely tolerable.

Disappointing effort from an author I had high hopes for. It makes me dread reading the next book in the series. Reads like something written in the 1950’s.

[Andrena G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Fascinating Prequel to The Bittersweet Bride

Having first learned of Theodosia and Ewan's story in "The Bittersweet Bride", it was intriguing to glimpse their origin tale in the short story "A Bittersweet Moment". The duo had fallen in love during an era when Blacks and Caucasians did not mix, and Ewan's father succeeded in breaking up their relationship, as well as Ewan's playwright ambitions, by making a false and eventually unkept promise. The couple, believing the deception, parted ways for a period that was not intended to exceed one year. Unfortunately, the couple's reunion would be delayed until they meet again in the full-length novel that follows. In the sequel, much of what happened to Ewan and Theodosia during their six-year hiatus from one another would remain concealed as the story unfolds.

[DeeDee W · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this Historical Romance

I am a new reader and I lord this short story. I’m grateful for small dictionary of words you included at the end. I had already looked into what those words meant as I was like what is that. Lol. Anyway, I truly enjoyed this book and look forward to the continuation of the series to follow. I will be starting that series today, looks like historical romance has become a new genre for me. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Mary Calton Gerard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Different...

The story was fascinating however, it reminded me why I became a scientist and not a historian. The short story is sweet and the characters amusing. If I can wade through the antiquity and the historical events I may read the next book in the series. First time reading the author's writing.

[Esther Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Book

Fantastic recency read can't wait to read more from this series of books. I really enjoyed the characters and how they devolved though the book. Can't wait to see how much more they continue to develop in future books

[Mamie Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book was interesting. Love the characters .It starts out innocent enough. As a friendship brows so does a

bond between them . She he!ps him with his self-esteem and he help her diction .Forbidden love grows with no good outcome. I would like to follow what happened next .

[Bianca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short but sweet.

My first time reading from this author, and an enjoyable start to a new series. Looking forwards to 'Bittersweet Bride'.

[Sandra G. Coffey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very Good!

The story was short but so well written and with enough intrigue that I am looking forward to reading the next one.

[Zanette Easton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyed it!

Well written story, well researched and interesting. Liked the diversity, understanding and inclusion of black characters in the regency period and the gentle romance.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tantalising tease. I am adding the next, Bittersweet Bride to my “to read” list.

[C · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was very impressed with this short story depicting the life of a woman who wanted to make it no matter what doing what she knew she was good at. Read during the Corona Virus Pandemic of 2020.