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yourbookishbff 's review for:

A Lady Would Know Better by Emma Theriault
4.0
emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

This may be my favorite way to handle amnesia in historical romance (and is the FIRST I've read to do it this way, though I'm certain there are others I just haven't read yet). Our FMC is found after falling from a horse in the opening scenes of the novel, and she has no idea who she is, where she's from or what happened to her. And better yet, neither do we! I loved having this third person POV so intentionally limited to what the characters know about themselves and each other, and I was invested in the mystery of Jane-without-a-surname from the start. My only frustration was just how much work this did to set up a series - between the very large cast of siblings and the equally large cast of friends, I was genuinely lost on the side characters and couldn't keep any of them straight (a really frustrating feeling when I was so enjoying the main characters). That said, the prose is lovely and the slow (SLOW) burn romance was angsty and compelling and I know future books won't have to do this set up again, so I'm looking forward to these installments in the story. An exciting debut from a new historical romance author!

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