Christmas in Central Park by Joanna Schupe
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The premise of this novella was a blast! Our Gilded Age New York heroine wrote an advice column under an assumed identity: a married, respectable society lady who was an expert cook and household manager. Meanwhile, our heroine was actually single, from a lower class, and terrible at cooking and cleaning—she just got all the answers from her mother and friends, who all worked as maids.

So when our hero, the newspaper owner, volun-told her to host a dinner party, she needed a fake husband, mansion, and staff. Pronto [insert festive high jinx here].

And I realized I have a favourite micro-trope: when the hero thinks she’s married (either because she’s a Mrs who’s widowed or because of a secret identity) and falls for her, all while berating himself for lusting after another man’s wife. It’s just the kind of low-stakes angst I like to see.

Though there was one part I wanted more of: our hero was predisposed to fall for her because he loved her columns, the spark of her personality present in her writing. It was so lovely, I needed more!