Classic style regency romance without the problematic bits.
Plot: Nicholas and Margaret have been best friends their whole lives and had assumed that they would marry as well. Minor problem: Maggie is the daughter of a wealthy Squire and Nicholas is the son of a retired prostitute now working in the Squire’s home. Other minor problem: her neighbour Frederick is very confident that she will marry him instead, and figures there’s nothing wrong with helping turn the page on this childish infatuation by getting Nicholas falsely accused of theft and either transported or executed. Fortunately, Maggie finds out just in time to save him, but he must run and never come back. And where to? Why to find his father – the infamous Gentleman Jim. Shenanigans ensue.
This story is a lovely, low stakes friends-to-lovers. When Nicholas returns under another name, Maggie knows him immediately. There’s a complication with Maggie’s estate and our friend Frederick, and this too could have been resolved quicker for my liking. Still, Nicholas and Maggie’s connection felt organic, their friendship as young people was lovely and their love for one another was vivid throughout the book. Honestly, maybe a touch too intense (very much a soulmates type narrative), but for a romance lover, I’m told I’m not at all sentimental, so your mileage will vary.
This is a very traditional style romance. There is no sex before marriage, and none on the page at all, but Mathews still does an excellent job of conveying Maggie and Nicholas’ yearning for one another in a way that doesn’t feel melodramatic or maudlin or dragged out. There is intimacy galore and it is really nice.
Also, despite the fact that it’s a low stakes story with little in the way of surprises along the way, the novel has great momentum. I inhaled the book in all of a day and a half and hadn’t even realized how quickly I was moving through it. Really, the main consequence of the gentle storytelling is that as much as I enjoyed my time with the book, it didn’t stay with me. I read it, I enjoyed it, but as soon as I put it down I was done with it.
One last note – on representation. It takes Nicholas a bit longer than one might think to recognize Maggie because she was badly ill some years ago and never fully recovered. She struggles with maintaining her strength and can faint dead away if she overexert herself. While Nicholas encourages her to push herself and recover some of her lost youthful vigour, his love does not cure her. She gets to be a woman with a disability who has found happiness because she’s a wonderful person, not because of or despite her condition. Nicholas is able bodied but he is an excellent partner, pushing her when he knows she needs it and just being there to love her when she’s hit her limit. He never patronizes her or treats her as if she’s less self possessed or knows her mind less just because her body does not always do what an able bodied person does. It’s still sadly rare to see protagonists in romance like this, and even rarer to do right by them.