Overall: 4.5 rounded to ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Readability: 📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔 (I thought Knight did a really great job of letting us get to know the mains in a short amount of pages!)
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥
Humor: A touch
Perspective: third person from both hero and heroine
More character focused or plot focused? character
How did the speed of the story feel? medium
When mains are first on page together:
Cliffhanger: No, this ends with a happily ever
Epilogue: yes (not too far in the future)
Format: voluntarily read an advanced reader copy from the author in e-book form
Why I chose this book: I absolutely fell in love with A Lord’s Guide to Mutiny, Marriage, and Mistletoe almost a year ago from Knight and couldn’t wait to try more by her!
Mains: This is a M/F relationship between a cishet hero and heroine

Should I read in order?
This is fine to pick up alone.

Basic plot:
Sir Dennis gets trapped in a rail car with Blanche only to find her uncle is desperate to marry her off to the next man that walks through the door – and as a Bishop, he can do just that.

Give this a try if you want:
- Victorian – 1856
- road trip – most of this book takes place on a train from London
- holiday romance – this takes place on Christmas Day
- some elements of instalove
- knighted hero
- ruined heroine
- forced proximity
- hero has a dimple!
- hero has been celibate for awhile
- heroine has very long hair – to her knees
- disability rep – hero (view spoiler)
- shorter novel
- medium steam – 2 full scenes for a shorter novel

Ages:
- heroine is 20, hero is about 25

First line:
Dennis Fairplace was very lucky the trains were running on Christmas Day.

My thoughts:
I was so curious how this one was going to play out – the blurb sounded very unique.

This forced proximity novel had so much heart – these mains will just make you melt. Their triumphs in life despite adversity make them such a wonderful couple together. I found myself adoring them both and really believing in their happily ever after even though this is a very quick paced Christmas romp – taking place over the course of only a couple days.

I have really loved what I’ve read from Knight so far – eager to grab all her books! She also had fantastic author notes.

Few random reading stats for this author
# of books read: 3
Average rating: 5 stars
Favorite book: A Lord’s Guide to Mutiny, Marriage and Mistletoe

Quotes

Blanche’s eyes widened. How terribly casual to go without a coat. Men only did that in their own homes. He rolled up his sleeves to his elbows, exposing his forearms. Her breath caught in her throat.
He resumed his position at the lock and bent his head to the task.
Blanche couldn’t help but notice his strong, thick arms as he wrestled with the hairpin and the lock nor his broad shoulders. Whatever he’d done in the army had treated him quite well.
 

Content warnings: These should be taken as a minimum of what to expect. It’s very possible I have missed some.

- parental death
- remembrances of war and death (hero)
- abusive and toxic family members
- domestic violence on page – the heroine’s uncle slaps and coerces her
- kidnapping and forceful marriage by heroine’s relative of the hero and heroine
- heroine remembers abusive schooling
- heroine was taken advantage of by a man who implied marriage and left her ruined

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes, safe sex aspects, consent, pregnancy/child in the story:

Safe sex: 

  hero pulls out 

How’s the consent? 

  It’s good 

Pregnancy/children in story? (Please note this is the best to my memory/note taking. If you see something I missed please feel free to message!) 

  No children in the story or pregnancy (though the possibility of pregnancy is presented as the heroine’s former beau didn’t bother to pull out before leaving her) 

53% - kiss
67% - 🔥breast play, fingering for her, missionary

“So sweet,” he murmured. “So fucking sweet. I knew it.”

86% - 🔥kisses, oral for her, her on top
”That’s it, come for me. Let me feel how much you want this. I want to drink you up, so give it to me.”