Lady Anne Deveril is the unofficial leader of her group of friends and she has slowly seen them fall in love. When her father died many years before, she chose to leave that chance of love behind and followed her distraught mother into mourning. Her childhood friend, Hart, was the one she left behind and ever since their relationship has become antagonistic. However, when she needs a favor he is the first person she turns to, but being the difficult man that he is, he wants something in return. He wants Anne to attend a house party at his grandfather’s estate and to forego wearing her mourning colors.

Mimi Matthews historical romance novels often have interesting situations and diverse characters which makes her novels really enjoyable to read giving them a realistic feel that a lot of historical novels just don’t achieve. In this case Anne makes a difficult decision to stand by her mother in her many years long of mourning her father, wearing black and putting herself in a difficult place with her peers. A young woman is supposed to be trying to catch a husband, of course, and Anne has zero interest in achieving that goal. Hart, however, is tired of waiting on the sidelines and decides to push her towards her future, which includes him.

Of the three novels in the series this one is my least favorite only because of its more straight historical romance path. It was interesting to see how Anne and Harts past was intertwined as we had no inkling before this novel and only saw their antagonistic behavior towards each other. However, they were both in the upper echelon of society so there wasn’t really any diversity, and the only difficulty was the fact that a distant cousin inherited her father place in society which leaves she and her mother reliant upon him. An unfortunate part of our history but I found it interesting to see how they dealt with being victims in a world ruled by elite white guys. To me that was the best part of this novel.

Despite it landing in the my number three spot in the series, I still enjoyed this novel. Mimi Matthews is truly a talented writer and creates really interesting characters that you want to know more about. If you’re a fan of historical fiction, pick this series up. Although this novel can be read as a stand alone I think you’ll get more out of it if you’d read the other two novels first. They will give you a feel for this author’s writing and you’ll understand a bit more of the characters you’ll be reading about. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review and it was honest.

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