ADHD-coded board game designer with incredibly supportive family tries to help out a friend and gets marriage trapped to a duke's kid. She hates that idea. Swoony shenanigans ensue.

2 POVs, 3rd person, past tense, 1870s, main couple are early 20s and late 20s, spicy, very mild kink.

This is a cute (and hot) one. I was thoroughly charmed by both characters. Pandora is an excellently filled out character, Gabe starts out really well done and lovely, but he loses a little depth in the second half of the book. He continues to do interesting things, even if we aren't getting additional internal movement.

Kleypas gives good banter, but fucking gold stars all over Pandora's dialogue and Gabriel's responses. 

Lots of feminism and healthy masculinity, with a few stressful exceptions where we remember "oh yeah, even a sweet ally-bro in 1870s was stewed in sexism- bias deprogramming takes a while."

Themes of trust and acceptance are rampant in this book and it slaps.

Continuity - third book in Ravenels series- if you've read the first Ravenel book and are cool with some spoilers for Book 2, you'll be alright reading this one. Additionally, one of our protagonists is the child of the couple from Kleypas' Devil in Winter. I hadn't read that, but the parents are super charming and do pop up through the novel.

There are a few moments where what feels like a thing that will become plot-relevant is actually a call back to DiW. 

Narrator - Mary Jane Wells kicks ass. She does all 'The Ravenels' audiobooks and it'll be one of the reasons I finish the series.

Epilogue - Really, really appreciate an epilogue that does something different than

"babies. babies. babies."

This one felt

satisfying and true to the couple.