Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 
Plot/Storyline: 📖📖📖📖 
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋 
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔 
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡ 
Romance: 💞💞 
Sensuality: 💋💋💋💋 
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑 
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥 
Humor: Just a touch

Basic plot:
Lavinia runs the family business, a circulating library, pretty much by herself. Her father is ill and her brother is rather young, naive and lacking responsibility. She’s carefully saved most of the year to make this Christmas one to remember, but her brother ruins her plans by losing the money.

William Q White has wanted Lavinia from afar, but he knows he doesn’t have the means to provide a real life for her. He dreams of a night though, and that becomes possible when he overhears a conversation about debts owed. 

Give this a try if you want:
- Late Regency (1822)
- Low steam – 1 full scene and 1 short that I didn’t count
- Christmas time novella
- Ditch the nobility – working class hero and heroine

Ages:
- I have the heroine at 19 but don’t have an age for the hero. I’m thinking mid 20s?

My thoughts:
I thought this novella was interesting. I enjoy Milan’s writing, she’s one you get very sucked into her world and just fall in with the characters. She has a way with character depth that I enjoy. I think it’s hard to get that feeling in a novella but I felt like I knew the characters here.

There’s some feelings of dubious consent here with the hero buying the debt and coercing the heroine into a sexual act with him – though it’s really not that simple. I can see some people strongly disliking this hero because of that. I don’t mind stuff like that and overall enjoyed the plot of the book. Especially the twists Milan put on about halfway through the story.

I liked that nothing really went as was expected. I read almost exclusively historical romance so I see similar plot lines a lot and I didn’t find that here. 

I’m going to start book 1 of the series soon!

Here’s a few random parts that I wanted to note from the book

The entire ridiculousness of being ruined – powerful words here that I love!
<i>
“I dishonored you-”
“Strange,” Lavinia interjected, “that I do not feel dishonored.”
He frowned as if puzzled, and then started again, “I ruined you-”
“Ruined me for what? I am still capable of working in this shop, as you see. I do not believe I shall turn toward postitution as a result of one afternoon’s pleasure. And as for marriage – William, do you truly think that any man worth having would put me aside for one indiscretion?”
</i>

And I adored when he confronted Lavinia’s brother about protecting her!
<i>
“You leave her in that shop with nobody to call for if she needs help except your father, who is too ill to respond. You send her out to capture your vowels from unknown ruffians who live near docks where sailors cavort. Don’t tell me you protect your sister. How many times have I found her alone in the library? Do you have any idea what I could have done to her?”
</i>

And yes! I loved our heroine’s speech here:
<i>
“I took it, believe you had no choice-”
“No choice? Even if the promissory note had been real and enforceable, I had a choice. I could have pawned by mother’s wedding ring for funds. I could have let James take his chances with the magistrate and debtor’s prison. I could have married another man – I’ve had offers, you know, from well-to-do gentlemen who wouldn’t blink at paying ten pounds in pin money. Do not think me such a poor creature as to be confined so easily without choice. I chose you, and I would choose you again and again and again.”
</i>

And I loved when he tries to hurt her purposefully and push her away and say he doesn’t love her she calls him out on it. She doesn’t fall for it. This is a common plot device in romance, the hero hurts the heroine to save her and she runs away in tears knowing it’s over and how could she have been so wrong about him? Well I love that she didn’t even flinch and called him out on his nonsense. How refreshing.

Content Warnings:

Dubious consent feeling with the sex – hero buys the debt of the family and coerces Lavinia into giving him a night of pleasure in exchange for it.
Fat comments – when the hero thinks about Lavinia marrying the butcher “Wiliam could not countenance the thought. He could not envision her beneath that fat, toothless man.” But what kind of person is he? Is it just jealousy that makes him comment on his body like that? Also brief mention of the ‘evil’ marquess “He thumbed through it slowly, his fat fingers pausing every so often, before moving onward.”
Suicide mentioned/death of a parent (Hero’s father)

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes:

21% - kisses and sex
74% - very short/vague scene