Review: Make the Season Bright by Ashley Herring Blake

Make the Season Bright by Ashley Herring Blake
Publisher: Berkley
Genre: Female/Female Contemporary Romance 

ISBN: 9780593550595
Release Date: October 1, 2024
Source: Publisher
Buy it here: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Audible

It's been five years since Charlotte Donovan was ditched at the altar by her ex-fiancée, and she’s doing more than okay. Sure, her single mother never checks in, but she has her strings ensemble, the Rosalind Quartet, and her life in New York is a dream come true. As the holidays draw near, her ensemble mate Sloane persuades Charlotte and the rest of the quartet to spend Christmas with her family in Colorado—it is much cozier and quieter than Manhattan, and it would guarantee more practice time for the quartet’s upcoming tour. But when Charlotte arrives, she discovers that Sloane’s sister Adele also brought a friend home—and that friend is none other than her ex, Brighton.

All Brighton Fairbrook wanted was to have the holliest, jolliest Christmas—and try to forget that her band kicked her out. But instead, she’s stuck pretending like she and her ex are strangers—which proves to be difficult when Sloane and Adele’s mom signs them all up for a series of Christmas dating events. Charlotte and Brighton are soon entrenched in horseback riding and cookie decorating, but Charlotte still won’t talk to her. Brighton can hardly blame her after what she did.

After a few days, however, things start to slip through. Memories. Music. The way they used to play together—Brighton on guitar, Charlotte on her violin—and it all feels painfully familiar. But it’s all in the past and nothing can melt the ice in their hearts…right?

Brighton Fairbrook and Charlotte Donovan were instant best friends at age twelve when Brighton moved in next door. From friends to lovers to fiancées, everything seemed to be going perfectly until their wedding day when Brighton left Charlotte at the altar. It’s been five years since then and the two haven’t spoken…until they find themselves going home with a friend for Christmas and discover themselves in the same place. The love, the spark, and the longing are all still there no matter how much Charlotte in particular tries to deny it. Is there a holiday miracle in the cards for two women who are so far apart yet so clearly made for each other?

Sometimes a book grabs your heartstrings from the first and doesn’t let go and that’s exactly what Make the Season Bright did for me. With Charlotte and Brighton’s story, Ashley Herring Blake has delivered a second chance romance that is bright, joyful, bittersweet, and just so lovely that I couldn’t put it down for a minute.

Charlotte and Brighton – Lola and Bright – endeared themselves to me from the very first. Charlotte is so achingly lonely that she broke my heart. She sees herself as forgettable and easy to leave and has put up walls to try and protect her fragile heart. She’s professionally incredibly successful but personally struggling. Brighton grew up with love, but she too is hurting. She’s at a crossroads, having lost her passion for music after her band dumped her. When the two of them meet again, it throws each off their stride. The love, the memories are strong and present even as they pretend not to know one another.

Brighton and Charlotte are both lovely, messy, flawed, and completely engaging heroines. They’ve made mistakes in their lives and with each other and continue to do so while they learn and grow. I loved their imperfections as much as their charms – it made them human and made me wish they were real so I could be friends with them. While Charlotte and Brighton have smoking chemistry everyone can see, that won’t solve anything (though it does make for some delicious tension). Love isn’t even enough to solve things and Herring Blake makes her heroines work for their happily ever after.

Make the Season Bright is about love, growth, letting down your walls and opening up in order to live a full life. It’s fun, sensual, joyfully queer, and sparkling with Christmas cheer. Quite simply, I loved this book. Charlotte, Brighton, and their friends all made me wonderfully happy and Herring Blake’s writing fully immersed me in their world. I cannot wait to enjoy Lola and Bright’s love story again and again and again.



FTC Disclosure: I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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Review: The Highlander’s Untamed Tempest by Heather McCollum

The Highlander’s Untamed Tempest by Heather McCollum
Series: The Brothers of Wolf Isle, Book 5
Publisher: Entangled: Scandalous 

Genre: Historical Romance
ISBN: 9781649371218
Release Date: September 30, 2024
Source: Publisher
Buy it here: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Entangled
Heather McCollum Reading Order

Eagan Macquarie doesn’t believe in love—nor does he want a wife. There is an entire world beyond Wolf Isle, and mo Dhia, he will seek it out. But the Macquarie curse will continue to haunt his family unless Eagan finds a suitable bride to break the hex once and for all. Now he must choose between a marriage he does not want or abandoning his family…until a comely stranger catches his eye.

Claudette Tempest Ainsworth—known as Tessa—is a learned French midwife who’s been waiting for her father to come fetch her from the harsh winds and sea of Scotland and return her to her beloved France. But with Eagan, she finds something unexpected: a flame of desire, hot and almost terrifying in its intensity. But even the brightest fires cannot sustain the inevitable distance that’s soon to follow…

Tessa seems to have bewitched them all. But when danger threatens Wolf Isle and the Macquaries, Eagan discovers that the love he never believed in might be his clan’s salvation…or its devastating downfall.

The youngest Macquarie brother will be the one to finally break the curse or doom his home forever in The Highlander’s Untamed Tempest. Heather McCollum brings her Brothers of Wolf Isle series to a close with Eagan Macquarie and Tessa Ainsworth, a mysterious woman with the power to change the course of the Macquarie clan.

Eagan loves his family but with everyone wanting him to fall in love and get married in order to break the curse, he’s chomping at the bit to leave. His bags are packed, he’s ready to set sail, and then he meets Tessa. The mysterious French beauty with a powerful voice is on Wolf Isle, waiting for her father to come back for her. Tessa is smart, talented, and a survivor, but she’s also deeply lonely. It’s lust at first sight for both her and Eagan and they have an easy chemistry that makes them an enjoyable couple to read about.

Tessa has no plans to stay on Wolf Isle and Eagan doesn’t want to be tied down, but the two of them can’t bear to be apart. The biggest obstacle in the romance is not just the two of them deciding if they want to stay on Wolf Isle and be together, but the dastardly French pirate Jandeau. The series’ main villain is back, as one would expect, and determined to destroy the Macquaries. How he plans to do so is not going to surprise readers, so really the tension is finding out how Tessa and the Macquaries will defeat him.

The Highlander’s Untamed Tempest is an entertaining romance with strong protagonists who know what they want and aren’t ashamed to go after it. I was rooting for Tessa and Eagan every step of the way and the result was a satisfying end to the Brothers of Wolf Isle series.



FTC Disclosure: I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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Review: It Takes a Rake by Anna Bennett

It Takes a Rake by Anna Bennett
Series: Rogues to Lovers, Book 3
Publisher: St. Martin’s Paperbacks
Genre: Historical Romance 

ISBN: 9781250793959
Source: Publisher
Buy it here: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Audible

She’s about to face her biggest challenge yet…
Since she was a girl, Miss Kitty Beckett has been adept at finding trouble: sneaking brandy, running away, and getting under the skin of the boy who, like her, was an apprentice to an architect. Now Kitty’s a talented heiress who can take a dry building plan and breathe life into it with her pencils and paints. Also? She can spot a rake at a hundred yards—and she won’t be tricked or charmed into marriage. Certainly not by a man who might interfere with her dreams. When Bellehaven Bay announces its first ever architectural design contest, she vows to win—with a little help from her childhood rival.

Turning her buttoned-up nemesis into a certified rake.
Leo Lockland, a hardworking architect with a gift for numbers, has returned home after a few years in London, and he has secrets. The biggest? He’s been in love with Kitty since they were both apprentices. She refuses to give her heart to any man, but Leo’s determined to beat the odds—even if it means learning how to be a rake. Fortunately, Kitty’s willing to tutor him in the nuances of fashion, flirtation, and seduction in exchange for his help with the contest. But the whole plan would fall apart if she knew how he felt, so he’ll have to be very convincing.

Let the lessons begin…
Leo proves to be a surprisingly quick study in the ballroom, on the beach, and in the bedchamber. Before long, he’s softening Kitty’s hard edges with his wicked words and kissing his way past all her defenses. Perhaps she’s a bit too skilled at teaching, because her lessons are threatening to backfire, putting her closely guarded heart in grave danger…

Anna Bennett brings her Rogue to Lovers trilogy to a close with It Takes a Rake. The youngest of the Bellehaven Belles takes center stage in this friends/rivals-to-lovers romance.

Kitty Beckett wants two things: to become a successful architect and to find a partner who she will never be in danger of falling in love with. Kitty has severe abandonment issues and with her closest friends seeming to be moving along in life without her, she is determined to put her career first and never be hurt by a husband who could leave her. Then her old nemesis comes back into town and threatens to make Kitty examine what she truly wants out of life.

Leo Lockland has been away from Bellehaven Bay for four years but one thing that hasn’t changed is how much he yearns for Kitty. Now he’s back and the two of them are teamed up for an architectural design competition. He'll help Kitty with her calculations and in exchange, she will help him win the “mystery woman” who has his heart. Leo knows it’s a risk that may backfire when Kitty learns it is she he’s in love with, but it’s a risk he has to take. He’ll let him turn her into a rake if that’s what’s necessary to win her over.

Leo is an absolutely endearing hero. He’s so sweet and kind and I loved that he wasn’t a dashing rogue at heart. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to change him and worried Kitty’s attempts to alter a perfectly delightful man into a rake would take away from what made him such an appealing hero. What happens I’ll leave readers to discover but suffice it to say that Kitty’s lessons make her look at her old friend and competitor in a way she rarely allowed herself to do in the past.

Kitty was a bit harder for me to connect to, mostly because she was intent on keeping her walls up high. I liked watching her lower them, however, but Leo has his work cut out in order to get her to trust him. Their romance is slow to start because both of them are holding something back, but Bennett makes things work out in an organic manner, resulting in a satisfying happily ever after.

Though It Takes a Rake is the third book in the Rogues to Lovers series, it can easily be read as a standalone. I liked seeing where Poppy, Keane, Hazel, and Blade are now, and how they come together to support Kitty, but it wasn’t necessary to enjoy Leo and Kitty’s story. All in all, this was a sweet romance that had some bumps in the road to an ending that was quite lovely.



FTC Disclosure: I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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Review: Hers for the Weekend by Helena Greer

Hers for the Weekend by Helena Greer
Series: Carrigan’s Christmasland, Book 3
Publisher: Forever
Genre: Female/Female Contemporary Romance 

ISBN: 9781538768686
Release Date: August 27, 2024
Source: Publisher
Buy it here: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Audible

No-nonsense Tara Sloane Chadwick is practically perfect. An impeccably mannered Southern belle, she’s the youngest to make partner at her law firm and still friends with all her exes. However, when the woman behind her most humiliating breakup invites Tara to her wedding, Tara panics at the thought of showing up alone and impulsively declares she’s bringing her very serious girlfriend.

One issue: Tara is seriously single.

Waitress and wild child Holly Siobhan Delaney may be lusting over Tara—but Tara only dates women she can marry, and Holly’s sworn off relationships. So when Tara needs a fake girlfriend, Holly’s eager to propose a no-strings, temporary fling. Only sharing secrets and steamy kisses show Holly the caring woman beneath Tara’s picture-perfect exterior, tempting Holly to break her own rules. Can these two opposites trust their feelings enough to try for forever—or will their relationship go down in flames?

Fake dating leads to much more than a real relationship in Hers for the Weekend. Helena Greer wraps up her Carrigan’s Christmasland trilogy with Tara, the Southern debutante lawyer/ex-fiancée of Miriam Bloom, and Holly, a waitress and baker with wanderlust in her veins.

I absolutely loved Tara. She’s an ice queen on the outside and wields her Southern charm like a whip, using her power and connections to do as much good as possible even though it’s slowly breaking her down. Inside, Tara is lonely, vulnerable, and doesn’t believe anyone could truly love and care about her. When she goes to Carrigan’s for her ex-fiancée’s wedding, Tara is immediately enveloped by people who it’s easy for readers to see care about her. I really loved watching Tara realize her value, that she doesn’t have to be needed to be wanted. It was a delight to see Tara come into her own over the course of the story.

Holly is the catalyst for that change. She sees Tara for who she truly is and appreciates the woman as a whole, even though she would never want to put up with the life Tara leads (and would require any wife of hers to navigate as well). Holly is sassy and sweet, easy to like and has great chemistry with Tara. But Holly has issues of her own that she’s never addressed and those are obstacles she will have to overcome as well.

Holly and Tara have fantastic chemistry and the sexual tension is delicious between them. It’s a bit disappointing with all the buildup to have things fade to black, but oh well. I really enjoyed watching Holly and Tara fall for each other. Their relationship grows in small moments and large as the two team up during the wedding festivities at Carrigan’s. And speaking of the winter wonderland of a locale, the Carrigan’s crew is heavily involved in this story. You don’t have to have read Season of Love or For Never and Always in order to follow along, but it does add to the world. Everyone adds to the story, especially when it comes to Tara’s personal journey.

Hers for the Weekend is fun and has some large personalities, but Greer doesn’t let those characters pull focus from Tara and Holly. I really enjoyed this romance and watching Tara and Holly learn that they could build a life that is what they want rather than what they think they should do to run for or make amends for the past. Tara in particular spoke to me and was a stand-out character. All in all, I found Hers for the Weekend to be a heartwarming read with a joyful queer romance and an abundance of welcoming characters.



FTC Disclosure: I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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Review: Magical Meet Cute by Jean Meltzer

Magical Meet Cute by Jean Meltzer
Publisher: MIRA
Genre: Contemporary Romance/Magical Realism 

ISBN: 9780778334415
Release Date: August 27, 2024
Source: Publisher
Buy it here: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Audible

Is he the real deal…or did she truly summon a golem?

Faye Kaplan used to be engaged. She also used to have a successful legal practice. But she much prefers her new life as a potter in Woodstock, New York. The only thing missing is the perfect guy.

Not that she needs one. She’s definitely happy alone.

That is, until she finds her town papered with anti-Semitic flyers after yet another failed singles event at the synagogue. Desperate for comfort, Faye drunkenly turns to the only thing guaranteed to soothe her—pottery. A golem protector is just what her town needs…and adding all the little details to make him her ideal man can’t hurt, right?

When a seriously hot stranger mysteriously turns up the next day, Greg seems too good to be true—if you ignore the fact that Faye hit him with her bike. And that he subsequently lost his memory…

But otherwise, the man checks Every. Single. Box. Causing Faye to wonder if Greg’s sudden and spicy appearance might be anything but a coincidence.

After an antisemitic attack in her neighborhood, ceramicist Faye Kaplan is shaken. Having found her connection to her faith through magic, Faye is a practicing Jewitch. On a drunken night after the attack, Faye crafts a golem to protect her…one that happens to have all the qualities of her dream man inscribed on it. The next day, she accidentally runs into a guy with her bike. The man hits his head and awakens in the hospital with no memory. What’s a girl to do but take him home and help him recover? Greg turns out to be a great houseguest; he’s protective, funny, intelligent, kind, enjoys Scrabble…all the things Faye inscribed on her golem. Could it be coincidence or is magic at play?

Magical Meet Cute is a mix of fluffy magical romcom and serious, realistic trauma. It sounds like it shouldn’t work, but Jean Meltzer balances things fairly well, though for me – someone who actually enjoys fluff more as a rule – the heavier topics were more interesting.

Faye is a trauma survivor. She came from an abusive household and though she’s caring and loving, she has high walls to protect herself. She lives with a disability that is a constant reminder of what she survived, and the disability rep is well done. With the rise in antisemitism her trauma response is triggered, and Meltzer handles this heavy topic very well. I really connected with this part of the story, of the small and large ways antisemitism affects people. It’s not something you see in romances and generally not something covered in-depth and I really appreciated the time and care Meltzer took with this topic.

Magical Meet Cute is also a romcom with a quirky dog, nosy friends, and hijinks. For the most part the blend of the heavier and lighter moments work, though I will say that the book isn’t quite as light as the cover and blurb make it out to be. I enjoyed the mystery of whether Greg was a man or a golem, but I do wish it had been resolved a bit earlier to give the romance more time to breathe and develop. The rom of the romcom could have used a bit more work because the chemistry wasn’t as strong as I would have liked. Greg was a wonderful hero, protective and caring to the max. Faye was an interesting heroine, complex and skilled both as a ceramicist and Jewitch. But she also has a few traditional romcom heroine quirks to her that didn’t always work for me.

I struggle with rating Magical Meet Cute because I was so-so on the romance. However, the parts of the book that work really work. The Jewish, Jewitch, and disability representation are solid and the examination of antisemitic attacks through the eyes of the victims really meant something to me. There’s emotional honesty in these plotlines that really stand out and make me recommend this story.



FTC Disclosure: I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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Review: Passions in Death by J.D. Robb

Passions in Death by J.D. Robb
Series: In Death, Book 59
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Genre: Futuristic/Mystery/Suspense 

ISBN: 9781250289568
Release Date: September 3, 2024
Source: Publisher
Buy it here: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Audible
J.D. Robb Reading Order

On a hot August night, Lt. Eve Dallas and her husband, Roarke, speed through the streets of Manhattan to the Down and Dirty club, where a joyful, boisterous pre-wedding girls’ night out has turned into a murder scene. One of the brides lies in a pool of blood, garroted in a private room where she was preparing a surprise for her fiancée—two scrimped and saved-for tickets to Hawaii.

Despite the dozens of people present, useful witnesses are hard to come by. It all brings back some bad memories for Eve who once suffered an assault in the very same room—but she’d been able to fight back and survive. She’d gotten justice. And now she needs to provide some for poor young Erin.

Eve knows that the level of violence and the apparent premeditation involved suggest a volatile mix of hidden, heated passion and ice-cold calculation. This is a crime that can be countered only by hard detective work and relentless dedication—and Eve will not stop until she finds the killer who destroyed this couple’s dreams before the honeymoon even began…

A bachelorette party at the Down and Dirty turns from a rowdy night out to a horrible tragedy when one of the brides is murdered. Everybody loved Erin and her fiancée – they have a tight circle of friends and no one can imagine who would do this. But someone in their inner circle did. Lieutenant Eve Dallas doesn’t know Erin Albright, but she will come to as she stands for her and finds the killer in Passions in Death.

Within the more case-centric In Death stories, there are two kinds of tales: one where it’s a race against time and others like this one that have a more measured pace. This story is the latter and it’s a nice breather to the more tense installments while also being a compelling story on its own. The crime Eve, Peabody, and company are trying to solve is engaging because the victim at the heart of it seems so likeable, was on the verge of a joyous occasion, and as Eve notes, it was a crime that was committed not just of passion but of a meanness, a pettiness that adds its own flavor of cruelty. I liked watching Eve and Peabody do the legwork, consult others and work the case. I especially liked that Eve was torn between suspects and her reasoning kept me switching back and forth as well.

At fifty-nine full-length books into the series, Eve and Roarke are fairly settled into their marriage but that doesn’t mean things are less interesting. I love watching them grow together and this case puts them in a more reflective mode over marriage and partnership. J.D. Robb doesn’t bring us any dramatic highs or lows in this story and that’s just fine by me. The longer I sit with it the more I like this story.

Most of the In Death books can be read on their own, but I will warn that if you don’t like spoilers then you should be up-to-date before starting Passions in Death as past cases (and whodunit) are mentioned. I admit, being a longtime fan is also why I so enjoyed the quieter character moments, the bonds of love and friendship weaving throughout the background of this story. It’s not just Eve and Roarke who continue to grow, it’s their circle as well. Any time spent in the world Robb has created is a delight and this trip was no exception.



FTC Disclosure: I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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Review: Elizabeth of East Hampton by Audrey Bellezza and Emily Harding

Elizabeth of East Hampton by Audrey Bellezza and Emily Harding
Series: For the Love of Austen, Book 2
Publisher: Gallery Books
Genre: Contemporary Romance 

ISBN: 9781668052556
Release Date: August 6, 2024
Source: Publisher
Buy it here: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Audible

It’s a truth universally acknowledged—well, by Elizabeth Bennet anyway—that there’s nothing worse than summer in the Hamptons. She should know: she’s lived out there her whole life. Every June, her hometown on the edge of Long Island is inundated with rich Manhattanites who party until dawn and then disappear by September. And after twenty-five years, Lizzy wants to leave, too.

But after putting her own dreams on hold to help save her family’s failing bakery, she’s still surfing the same beach every morning and waiting for something, anything, to change. She’s not holding her breath though, not even when her sister starts flirting with the hot new bachelor in town, Charlie Pierce, and he introduces Lizzy to his even hotter friend.

Will Darcy is everything Lizzy Bennet is not. Aloof, arrogant…and rich. Of course, he’s never cared about money. In fact, it’s number one on his long list of things that irk him. Number two? His friend Charlie’s insistence on setting him up with his new girlfriend’s sharp-tongued sister. Lizzy Bennet is all wrong for him, from her money-hungry family to her uncanny ability to speak to him as bluntly as he does everyone else. But then maybe that’s why he can’t stop thinking about her.

Lizzy is sure Will hates everybody. He thinks she willfully misunderstands them. Yet, just as they strike an uneasy truce, mistakes threaten Charlie and Jane’s romance, with Will and Lizzy caught in the undertow. Between a hurricane and a hypocritical aunt, a drunken voicemail and a deceptive party promoter, the two must sift through the gossip and lies to protect the happiness of everyone they love—even if it means sacrificing their own. But when the truth also forces them to see each other in an entirely new light, they must swallow their pride to learn that love is a lot like surfing: sometimes the only way to survive is to let yourself fall.

I love a good Pride and Prejudice adaptation and Audrey Bellezza and Emily Harding are truly wonderful at taking Austen’s classics and putting their own spin on them. Elizabeth of East Hampton is a fresh and fun take on Elizabeth and Darcy’s story.

Lizzy Bennet is at a crossroads in her life. She put her plan for a master’s at Columbia on hold after her father’s stroke and spends her days surfing then running the family bakery. She also tries to manage the many strong personalities in her household. Then Manhattanite Charlie Pierce shows up and dazzles Lizzy’s sister, Jane. Unfortunately, Charlie also brings his stuck-up friend, Will Darcy, with him. Will is snobby, rude, and someone she could never get along with…or is he?

If you’re familiar with Pride and Prejudice then you’ll know the rhythm coming as Lizzy and readers come to see the real Darcy who is so much different than what Lizzy first thinks of him. Will is an utterly endearing hero; he’s kind, protective, and a bit vulnerable. He’s a fantastic update of a timeless, dreamy hero. Lizzy I had a harder time connecting to than I do with her Austen counterpart and I can’t quite put my finger on why, only that I felt something was slightly missing from her. Because of this, the first half of Elizabeth of East Hampton was a bit slow for me and I didn’t truly start connecting with the story until Lizzy started letting her walls down. Once she did, I was all in.

One of the strengths of Bellezza and Harding’s storytelling is they follow the spirit and plot points of Austen’s classics but make them fully their own, changing details that make the story unique while never losing the essence of the characters. I loved what they did with the supporting cast in particular, how they changed and evolved characters like Mary, Kitty, and Lydia. It added a richness to the story I didn’t expect but absolutely loved. And if you enjoyed the first For the Love of Austen novel, you’ll surely delight in seeing George and Emma again. Their relationship with Will is not just a treat for fans but also works in the larger story, filling in the gaps of Colonel Fitzwilliam and Georgiana at times. But even if you haven’t read Emma of 83rd Street or the original Pride and Prejudice you can still enjoy this book on its own.

Elizabeth of East Hampton had its ups and downs for me in the beginning of the story but by the end I was completely enthralled. I love Bellezza and Harding’s writing and the way they retell Austen’s classics absolutely thrills me. I hope they have been persuaded to continue this series, especially since they’ve introduced a Freddie Wentworth who’s practically begging for an Anne Elliot.



FTC Disclosure: I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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