What I do remember of this novel is that there’s a lot of context that’s vaguely anachronistic (e.g., lots of characters who have leeway to travel alone and cause all sorts of mayhem) but it’s all in service of a good cause. I always root for MacLean heroines, as you can see by the speed with which I finished this one (less than a day, and that might have been in travel as well).

This one also sticks out to me as being quite spicy in frankly novel seeming ways–there aren’t many books that do this, especially given the number of spicy times novels I’ve read. And usually the best novel ones have an additional layer or constraining factor that stands out. The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes is a good recent example–([because Marian is traumatized from her childbirth experience, she is no longer interested in penetration, for example, which leads to all sorts of interesting workarounds]). There’s scenes from this one which still simmer in the back of my brain! Good job, excellent job.

Otherwise, you have one of my favorite tropes–stuck together on a helter-skelter trip that will definitely involve Only One Bed and a complete toss of the usual manner of Fancy English Proprietary. I can’t say that the thread connecting this novel with the prior Hell’s Belles novel is all that strong, but I’ll probably pick up the next in the series as well. The best anachronism that comes with all of these novels is a strong sense of agency and therefore equality between the two main leads, and I can’t find any fault with that.