I want to say up front that I am not normally a fan of historical romance. 

This book is one of the very few exceptions. 

I was influenced to seek this book out by someone I trust, and it was superb! 

Romantic, steamy, and very, very swoonworthy. 

The author was able to weave a tale that included just the right amount of tension, introduce a sexy element to a time in our world when it was difficult to authentically portray such a thing, and that tension was resolved in a way that was both believable and avoided some of the typical tropes one sees in the genre. 

Overall, this was a great representation of a historical done in an absolutely smashing fashion.

I would love to be unique in my review of this lovely, whacky, hilarious, heartwarming book, but I am going to have to stick with some tried and true statements. I adored this dadgum book. All the heart-eye emojis! And that's saying something because I loved its predecessor, The Guncle (it was one of my top reads in 2022). And the number of times I laughed out loud, by myself, like a lunatic was only exceeded by the number of times I wept happy and sad tears. This story does everything I want a story to do; make me feel all the things. In short, everyone should read it. Everyone. It is a stunning work of art.

Ruby Dixon excels at putting FMCs in uncomfortable situations and then giving logical reasons for how they get themselves out of those same situations. This story is no different! I loved the sex and body positivity, along with the realistic (even though this is fantasy) portrayal of a person who just wants things to be easy, and whines when they are not. The struggle is part of the journey, after all! It appears that this story was built as a serial, and I believe the overall story arc suffered because of it. Clocking in at over 500 pages, there were some repeated details that should have been trimmed to shorten the overall length. However, it was a fun read from a beloved storyteller.