I was so fortunate to receive an e-ARC of Forever Your Rogue, by Erin Langston. Reading it, I felt like I did when I first read Circe, by Madeline Miller, like someone had reached into my heart and my head and untangled some essential truth of motherhood I couldn't fully understand, smoothing it out so I could finally see it plainly. It might seem a stretch to compare Cora to mythological witch-goddess Circe, but these are mothers holding up the sky for their children - mothers we know intrinsically from the very start.

And while this is absolutely a swoony, fake engagement to best-friend's-brother with all the reformed-rake-meets-widow hijinks you could ever wish for in a regency romance, it is also a gripping story of a mother's fight for her family and for herself. Langston's author's note details the very real historical context for the premise of Cora's story - that she could lose her children to a patently cruel legal standard that gave only her (deceased) husband the right to assign their guardianship. To know that most of the women who fought this law in the 19th century lost (losing rights to their own children), makes the perfect happily-ever-after in Cora's story feel like even more of a triumph.

And lest you think we're here for the laughs and heart-wreckage alone, PREPARE YOURSELF FOR CHAPTER FIFTEEN. And about five additional chapters after that. Holy. If you ascended to a new plane when Eros pulls out a timer in Electric Idol, THIS is your hissy rono (IYKYK).

I loved this and can't wait to reread it - highly recommend.