Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Readability: 📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥🔥 (might feel hotter to some people - there's a short scene I didn't count and another scene that is close to another that I combined for 1 flame)
Humor: a bit
Perspective: third person from both the hero and heroine
More character focused or plot focused? character
How did the speed of the story feel? medium (which is perfect pacing for me!) even though it’s a novella. It didn’t feel rushed at all!
When mains are first on page together: immediately
Cliffhanger: No, this ends with a happily ever after
Epilogue: Yes. And there’s also a second epilogue that is super cute that you can get from her newsletter.
Format: voluntarily read an advanced reader copy from the author in e-book form
Why I chose this book: I have been looooving Niven’s Bed Me books! I did sign up for the ARC of this one but definitely would have grabbed at some point to read anyway!

Should I read in order?
This one reads fine as a stand alone but is a part of Niven’s Lovelocks of London and Bed Me universe. It is also a part of the Curves and Cravats novella series and stands alone within that.

Basic plot:
Henrietta is compromised by her father’s best friend...

Give this a try if you want:
- Regency – 1819
- age gap – older hero
- father’s best friend
- put a baby in me
- full figured heroine
- the heroine actually enjoys traditional pursuits like embroidery (and I loved that! I’m so tired of romances pooing on embroidery!)
- hero is a cartographer and artist
- child in the story – hero has a son
- hero is a thoughtful gift giver
- sooooo much unrequited longing
- compromised heroine
- opposites attract – a bit of a sunshine/grump feel – there heroine is more bubbly and extroverted and the hero is stoic and quiet (most of the time...)
- higher steam but a slower burn - I settled at 3ish scenes in a shorter page count

Ages:
- hero is 43, heroine is 21

First line:
“I want a child.”

My thoughts:
Ohhh there was SO much to love about this novella. So, so much. Novellas can be a bit hard sometimes because they are shorter – so to establish all this longing, tension, background, character depth, but still have development on page...well sometimes I understand if some things in a novella fall a bit short. But Niven took this novella and filled it with all those things and more.

She included lovely tension building in a novella without making it rushed. You were longing right with along with these mains to cave and when they do it is so, so delicious. She makes you fall in love with them as people as you get to know what has made them who they are. I loved these characters so much, and they had such a believable HEA. This novella was just perfection to me!

She even made me like the kid . I tend to stay away from children in my romances – I am in the thick of child rearing – but sometimes I don’t mind it. But in this one I looooved what it added to the story. It just balanced everything and showed how much Oliver needed to be taught and how perfect Henrietta was for their family.

This romance has so much heart, and the characters deserve so much love and they have such a sweet and believable falling into each other. I just adored it. I’ve read a handful of the Curves and Cravats series so far and they have all been really amazing and delightful but shhhhh this one is my favorite so far.

Few random reading stats for this author
# of books read: 7
Average rating: 4.71 stars
Favorite book: Oh that is HARD. Because I LOVED this novella. But I also really loved Duke the Halls. And I also really loved Bed Me, Earl – that hero was so dang sweet. Another one hardly mentioned though, but still clings to my heart with a scene of the hero standing in the rain though is When Ardor Blooms. But….maybe Bed Me, Baron is my favorite?? That hero annoyed me so much then utterly broke my heart. And stomped all over. And then picked it up and put it together and cherished it. So….yeah maybe Bed Me, Baron.

Endearments

The hero calls the heroine ‘sweetheart’. 

Quotes

She looked away from him towards the fire that made the red-gold curls atop her head glint like flames themselves. “And I hope you would tell me how I could please you.”
Please him? Was there anything about her that didn’t please him?
----
She tried to get closer to him and stepped on his shoes. This made her stumble and he had to catch her to keep from falling, and she burst into laughter. She was so pretty, so rosy and sweet as she laughed in his arms that he quite lost his head.
Those pink lips. That warm breath with the scent of sugared violets. He wanted those lips, that breath. That delight, that promise. That hope. That kindness.
---
Her big, blue eyes that widened when she saw something she liked or when she was surprised. Her gorgeous, bright hair. Her lush bosom and hips, those decadent curves that inspired fantasies of the most impossibly wicked kind in which he worshipped her for hours at a time -
Stop it.
---
And he had, unexpectedly, given her the most marvelous, romantic Christmas gifts, ones that hinted at an intimacy between them that did not exist.
Rose-scented perfume. A reference to where they had become betrothed?
Yards of blue muslin in the exact shade of her eyes.
A bolt of pink taffeta. The month before Christmas, she had mentioned she loved pink.
//
And silk stockings. Silk stockings! From a man who had never seen her legs, let alone touched them.
---
She could ask him to take her somehwere. Cornwall. York. Anywhere. And there might be a crowded coaching inn. And only one room and only one bed. They would have to share and she would pretend to fall asleep and drape herself over him and see what came to pass.
---
He cleared his throat. “Forgive me. I’m very nervous myself.”
Oliver was nervous? Even though he had done this before?
“Don’t be nervous. It’s just me, after all.”
Another strange noise came from him. Oh, no. Was he going to flee?

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

- mention of death in childbirth (side character)
- death of spouse
- suicide of spouse remembered on page

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

Safe sex: 

  No but they are married and trying for a baby 

Hows 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!) 

  Yes, there is a child – the hero’s son – in the story. The heroine also wants a baby and they try for a baby within the story. 

17% - kiss
56% - heroine masturbation but it’s pretty short
64% -🔥 missionary – but it’s not good for the heroine – the hero is inexperienced and he’s overcome – he has one but she doesn’t

“Oh,” she said and sucked in a breath. “That’s lovely.” She wriggled just a little. “You touching me there.”
It was more than lovely.

70% - 🔥 bj and facial followed by oral for her

“What - “
She tore at his buttons until his groin was bared, his hard shaft springing out, fully erect.
Unerringly, her fingers wrapped around him. The first erotic touch ever on his cock from a hand that wasn’t his own.

79% - doggy (it follows closely on the last scene, so I combined them)

“So pretty. Too pretty.”
“Oliver,” she pleaded.
“My pretty wife. So very pretty even when you’re begging for my cock.”

91% - 🔥 oral for her, her on top
After another buck, he raised his head.
“Are you determined to ride my face, Valkyrie?”
“Oh, Oliver, please, I want to...please, let me ride your cock.”