But why is he shirtless? Scotland is COLD. And why does he have a tan? It’s cloudy there!

This book was sickeningly adorable, and dead sexy.

You know, I can barely remember what it was like before I could read feminist romance novels. Like, back in the day when I would raid my mom’s illicit collection shoved in the back of her closet, it was all rapey and submissive and gross all up in every book, and ladies were always stuck in the same gross positions, never allowed to have careers or be respected for their minds. It was all manly men stuff all the time.

But sexy things can still be sexy when men respect their womenfolk’s ideas, mind and personhood. WHO KNEW. Tessa Dare writes good, silly, feminist, anachronistic romance novels with characters who have yummy emotional chemistry and hot sex scenes. And this book is no exception.

This book is about Maddie, whose social anxiety causes her to fear society so much she decides to avoid it entirely by the most logical means she can find: making up a fake fiance who’s off at war, and writing him letters so people will leave her alone. She writes the letters and even mails them, never expecting to hear back from her made up suitor, and resigning herself to a life of solitude in the castle her uncle leaves her in his will. She “kills him off” years later when she can no longer bear to keep lying to her family. But who shows up at her doorstep but one Captain Logan McKenzie, “back from the grave”. He’s been getting her letters all along, and now has come to blackmail her into marriage.

They fall in love. It’s adorable. I liked it. (I feel like those three sentences could accompany any Tessa Dare novel.)

I do wonder if there will be any more books in this series, but she could do worse than ending it here with these two.