Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Readability: 📖📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑 (based on kisses, which were short)
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 0
Humor: Yes!
Perspective: Third person from both the hero and heroine
When mains are first on page together: A few chapters in (about 14% but this is novella length)
Cliffhanger: No, ends with a happily ever after
Epilogue: Yes
Format: voluntarily read an advanced reader copy from NetGalley that isn’t an advanced copy anymore because I let it languish on my kindle for years and years...in e-book form.
(Descriptions found at end of my review)

Should I read in order?
I don’t think it’s necessary? But it might be fun! I have only read books 10 and 12 of this series and enjoyed them both.

Basic plot:
Cynthia Louise is determined to get her cousin Gertie married at the matchmaking house party the Duke of Nottingvale is hosing...determined to push aside her own feelings for the duke.

Give this a try if you want:
- Regency (1814)
- Christmas/Holiday romance
- novella length
- Duke hero
- class difference (Duke and an ‘inappropriate’ Miss pair)
- matchmaking house party
- hero wants a wife
- putting on a play
- unrequited love
- no steam – just kisses on page

Ages:
- both mains are 30

First line:
As her cousin’s carriage rounded another hairpin turn up the snow-covered mountain, Miss Cynthia Louise Finch did her best to keep the playing cards and gambling chips from sliding off the squab in front of them.

My thoughts:
This book was so utterly delightful to me. I just loved it! It’s such a cute novella.

There was so much humor and heart in this story. I had so much fun while reading it. Cynthia was a true delight. Just a bright star of a heroine, joyful, spontaneous and one of those people you cannot help but feel the life exuding off of her. Alexander needs some help coming out of his starchy ducal shell and she is the perfect person to do that to him. I love how in awe of her he is – how he just basks in her presence. You cannot help but love Cynthia Louise and while the ending was a bit abrupt I feel like these two will be perfect for each other.

Quotes/spoiler-y thoughts:Any mistakes/typos are my own

Gertie’s face was pale. “All of the young ladies will be well-mannered debutantes from good families, just like me. And they won’t turn into a potato with all eyes and no mouth if the duke happens to glance in their direction.”
“You’ll be the prettiest potato the duke has ever seen,” Cynthia assured her.
---
“You’re a duke, not a gear in a pocket watch. You can change the pace once in awhile. Not everything has to be controlled down to the second.”
It was Alexander’s turn to look appalled.
Belle burst out laughing. “I suppose the snowstorm had you in a tizzy.”
“Dukes don’t tizzy,” he informed her.
---
“Your cousin is terrifying,” he told Lady Gertrude.
She brightened. “Cynthia Louise will be delighted to hear that.”
---
“One moment…” She and Max slipped into her guest chamber.
She closed the door behind them.
He tensed.
From the corridor, all Alexander could hear was what sounded like his very expensive furniture scraping across his equally expensive floors, followed by excited yips from the puppy, and a peal of laughter from Miss Finch.
She was out of breath and disheveled when she slipped back out of the door and closed it tight behind her.
“There,” she said, the word husky and breathless. “What now?”
Now, Alexander was going to shove his hands behind his back and perform any magic necessary to keep himself from kissing her.
She grinned at him. “Cat got your tongue?”
There were many, many things Alexander would like to do with his tongue, none of which were appropriate thoughts toward Miss Finch.
---
It might have resulted in nothing more than that, except Alexander had chosen that exact moment to start walking away from her. His stride bent his arm at such an angle that instead of nudging him with her knuckles, her fingers tangled with his.
They were now holding hands.
In the middle of his guest corridor.
“Er,” Alexander said.
He should have let go of her hand by now.
He was going to.
Any second.
---
She increased her pace, reaching her closed bedchamber door in less than a dozen brisk strides.
“Thank you for seeing me safe to my door,” she said. “Goodbye.”
He didn’t leave.
She didn’t flee into the safety of her bedchamber.
Her heart beat faster.
“I should have kissed you,” he murmured.
---
He gestured at the ivory keys. “I’m ready to hear your inappropriate alternative lyrics.”
She folded her hands in her lap primly. “Guests are asleep, Your Grace. It would not do to wake them up to the sound of my skill with rhyming ‘rocked me fore and aft’ with ‘the length of his shaf-”
Nottingvale closed the lid of the pianoforte.
“You’re right,” he said hastily. “They’re not prepared for the nuance of your lyrics.”
She shook her head in resignation. “No one ever is.”
Nottingvale cleared his throat. “Speaking of-”
“Turgid shafts?” she supplied hopefully.
---
“Do you always do what you’re supposed to do?”
“Yes,” he answered simply.
She patted his hand. “That’s too bad.”
“Almost always.” He trapped her hand in his.
She stared at him.
He lifted her fingers to his lips. Slowly. Deliberately.
---
“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be entertaining guests at your party?”
“You’re a guest at my party,” he reminded her. “And you’re not there. I came to...chastise you.”
“You’re not there, either,” she pointed out.
---
“A cousin of yours did something impractical?” Alexander murmured. “I am agog with shock.”
She grinned at him. “He launched himself ten feet into the air, flying over the dumbfounded gazes of his fellow soldiers. He was instantly infamous, and only became more talented and daring after that. He’s the one who taught me everything I know.”
“Wonderful,” said the duke. “I feel so much safer. Didn’t you break your leg? Twice?”
She wiggled her eyebrows. “And I won a two-hundred-pound wager.”
“Two...hundred…”
She adjusted her poles. “Ready?”
“I am not ready. I will never ready.”
---
Doctor Quinney kept up a cheeful patter as he sliced through Cynthia’s layers to expose her shoulder. He paused before be cut over her chest.
“Shall we ask His Grace to exit the room?” he asked softly.
“He can stay,” Cynthia croaked. “I was going to show him my bosom anyway.”
Alexander covered his fire-red face with one hand.
“She’s jesting,” he assured the doctor.
“You slide down on skis a second time.” She gave Alexander a wobbly smile. “I promised you’d earn something.”
 

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

- mention of family member passing
- injury by bow and arrow on page

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes:

 
Safe sex: 

No on page sex 

 
51% - kiss
59% - kiss
66% - kiss
70% – kiss