This book was painful to read. It was good enough that I wanted to finish it, which is embarrassing. The good part was that it was somewhat amusing and that sometimes I couldn't figure out where the author was going. The bad parts were the total lack of historical accuracy and authenticity, and the author's prose just felt leaden. If someone didn't want to write a book but felt that they had to, and they had read a fair sampling of books in the genre, that's what the prose felt like. So not recommended and I wouldn't read any other regencies by this writer. If the book hadn't been free through Kindle Unlimited, I would have felt bad about spending money on it. ( )

Annoying heroine - want to slap her. No spark between hero and heroine. ( )

When Major Anthony Wyclyff was wounded in the hospital, Sophia Rathburn spent every moment she could at his side. When she heard he was dead, she was devastated and withdrew from the foppish ton and the young men far too focused on inconsequential fripperies who dubbed her the Ice Queen. Sophia buries their cruelty, and her corsets, in a ritual meant to begin a new retiring life in the country.

Only Major Wyclyff didn't die. He recovered with a stiff leg and was promptly offered a position in the consulate in India - only he needs a wife. Sophia is all he could want as a companion in His Majesty's foreign service - poised, intelligent, refined - except when he comes across her during her ritual, she demonstrates that she is far from docile.

Sparks fly as Sophia insists on her freedom and Anthony persists in trying to manipulate her into marriage. I'm quite ambivalent about this book. Both of the characters are hopelessly dense about their own and the other's feelings. Both are unnecessarily mean to one another as they squabble about absolutely everything. And not in a bickering way - they truly bring out the most horrible, contrary and cruel sides of one another. And therefore it is unconvincing when they suddenly reach an understanding three-quarters of the way through the story and merely bicker amiably. And can it truly be love when they bring out the worst in each other?

The idea of the major attempting to win the hand of his lady fair is amusing, but Major Wyclyff doesn't realize that he is in love with her until halfway through the book. Before then she is simply expedient...and a bet. And his 'tricks' tend toward the ruinous side - hardly the work of the honest, straight-forward man Anthony is supposed to represent.

The end was sweet and adventurous, and the diversion to rescue a friend is highly entertaining, but I'm not sure it was worth wading through the prior 200 pages to reach it. Sophia and Anthony are just horrible and annoying through too much of the book. The end merely seems good as the reader is relieved that they've finally stopped acting too stupid to live. ( )