This is the third book in the Lords in Love series. In this addition, childhood friends Leah and Phin are reunited at the Merrywell Matchmaking Festival.

Phin is the owner of the botanical gardens, which is an important part of the festival. Leah is back in town after leaving to be a paid companion.

Romancing the Heiress is a sweet story, and Phin and Leah are a very likable couple. The book was fun and endearing at times. Overall, it was an enjoyable read!

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are my own.

D. Burke, your stories are always a saucy delight, and Leah and Phineas were no exception. For life preservation, Leah had made a choice seven years ago that ruined her chance at love. Now, all she had was hope. The heart knows what it desires, and poor Leah was in torment when she realized she must once again give up the love of her life. It is a well-crafted story depicting the road some folks will take to get ahead by allowing greed, jealousy, and hatred to rule their destiny.

This is a voluntary review of an advanced copy.

I have mixed feelings about this book, at first I just did not like Phin at all. He ignores Leah for seven years and then when she comes back just kind of ignores her to romance a supposed heiress.

Leah wasn't much better as she never got over her feelings for Phin and yet while she did want him, she didn't want to live in Marrywell, where he owns the gardens that were in his family.

She endures the rudeness of her employer as she tries to help find the employer's daughter a match so she can get married at the May festival.

Later in the book, I got more intrigued as Leah finally faced her demons from the past, secrets were revealed and Phin and Leah found out that they could have their HEA.

Romancing the Heiress is the third book in the Lords in Love series, and it was such a delight to read.

Phineas Radford, or Phin as Leah calls him, has inherited his family's botanical gardens. These gardens are an important part of Marrywell's annual May Day Matchmaking Festival, and also a big part of Marrywell's town history. He inherited the gardens from his father, who gambled away all of the money set aside for the estate and gardens leaving our male lead Phin in a tight spot.

Leah grew up in Marrywell with Phin. They were best friends until she moved away seven years ago to get away from her toxic family. She took a job as a companion to an older lady but now is the companion to a young lady and is escorting her to the Marrywell Matchmaking Festival.

I've only read a few other historical romances before this book, so I don't really know what I like in them exactly, but despite that I loved this one. Friends to lovers is my favorite trope, and while this doesn't fit that trope to a T (as there is a pretty lengthy period of time where they don't talk) it still felt like a friends to lovers book, which just made me like the book even more.

Phin is looking to marry a woman with a large dowry so he can rebuild his family's wealth and take better care of the botanical gardens. Leah is a companion to Genevieve, who has a large dowry, so Phin is interested in her right away. This is hard for Leah to watch because she has been in love with Phin for years.
I personally loved Leah and Genevieve's friendship with one another. Even though Genevieve was technically her boss, you can tell she really valued Leah as a person and could see that Leah really wanted what was best for Genevieve, especially when it came to finding a husband. In fact, the friendships between the women in this book is one of the main reasons I liked it so much,

Phin doesn't really start to find his feelings for Leah until about 40% in the book, but once he does the pining between the two is so sweet it was almost too hard to read. Throughout the book from the first moment of Phin and Leah's re connection, we get small flashbacks of different moments between the two and I thought this made such a difference in my opinion of their romance. If these small moments weren't included, I would have felt like there wasn't enough chemistry.

The only things I wished were different was that I wish we got more alone moments between Leah and Phin. majority of the book they only get to speak to each other when they are in a group with Leah's employers, so the relationship moves very slow and the book was hard to get into because of that. I also wish we were able to see more of Phin's thoughts about Leah. I believed Leah loves Phin more than he loves her because we got to see her love fester. Phin's feelings didn't have enough time to develop for me, but I do still think they belong together.

Overall, this was a pretty good book and I would recommend it to people that want to get into historical romance and people who want to read a historical romance set adjacent to the London season.

This is an honest review and I would like to thank the publisher, the author, and Netgalley for providing a free copy.

This story is romantic, sad, sweet and full of twists and turns. I loved the characters and the storyline, and the ending was fantastic.

A great addition to the collection! I really loved the story of Phineas and Leah. Great fun, a little sexy, with a lot of laughs.

And yet another story of the Lords in Love series, from my favorite historical romance writer duo: Erica Ridley and Darcy Burke. After Taming the Rake from Erica, where old acquaintances are on a path of revenge, Darcy has chosen the friends-to-lovers angle in Romancing the Heiress. Leah and Phineas have been friends since childhood. To escape her problems, Leah has taken employment as a companion to an elderly lady, leaving Phineas behind. But now, Leah is back in her hometown, during the May Day Matchmaking Festival to help her new employer to a match for her daughter. The friendship between Leah and Phineas is cute and super sweet. Although Leah has a crush on Phineas, she still tries to help him find a wife with a large dowry to save the botanical gardens. The story is cozy and bittersweet, because you can’t help but root for Leah, to have her crush reprocicated. But Phineas is too focused on saving the gardens and thus the May Day matchmaking Festival. In all, four out of five stars from me and a special thank you to Netgalley for providing the arc.

A second chance, friends to lovers romance with a little love triangle thrown in to keep everyone on their toes!

Darcy Burke returns us to the marriage minded fun and festivities with Romancing the Heiress, the third instalment in the Lords in Love duet series with Erica Ridley.

This series revolves around the Marrywell May Day marriage festival- and weeklong festivities were single people mingle in the hopes of meeting their match!

This installment brought us back to the roots of Mary well, and they are citizens. Both MC’s are residence of Merrywell, Phineas Radford, the heir to the botanical gardens at the heart of the matchmaking festival, and Leah Webster the prodigal daughter of the town, returned as a companion to an heiress.

Leah has brought her heiress, Miss Parker to her hometown to help her find a groom… And is not too impressed when she sets her eyes on her former love and best friend, Phin!

In need of an heiress to support his bankrupt estate and keep the botanical gardens in the Merrywell festival going, Phin encourages Miss Parker’s suit.

But more than a friendship resumes, when Leah and fin come back together, in their brief romance of the past rekindles, leaving them with a chance of love, but puts the gardens at risk!

I love how Burke creates this love triangle and a difference in power between fins to love interest, and at the same time, there’s no real animosity between either of these characters as they all try to do their best and find a match or tend to their future.

It was also a lot of fun to see the first merry well match we are introduced to return as friends of this pairing and help as they help and encourage them to find their way together.

The whole Lords in Love series has been a lot of fun, and I absolutely love all these unique matches created in this event!

Thanks to author Darcy Burke and Zealous Quill Press for my review copy.

#LordsInLove #RomancingTheHeiress #DarcyBurke

I would like to thank netgalley and Zealous Quill Press for a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Enjoyable.

I’ve been a fan of Darcy Burke’s books (21) in the past. This one felt like she “phoned it in” .I found it too predictable. In fact, if you read the blurb, you will pretty much get what the book has to offer. By the time I was 15% into it, I was able to predict how it was going to end.

I had a hard time investing in the main characters. Phineas spent most of the book clueless, even to the point of achieving TSTL status. As for Leah, she gave me a little “woo is me” feeling. I wanted to reach into the book and give them a whack up the head in hopes of knocking some sense into them. If I can’t buy into the main characters, I can’t buy into the story.

I’m not a fan of the magical ending. But that’s what we have here. Leah finally confronts her family and walks away skipping and whistling a happy toon. And there comes the magical inheritance to save the day. And Leah is there to show Phin how to solve his problems. Well someone had to. He wouldn’t have been able to figure it out for himself.

Perhaps I need to walk away from the Lords in Love Series. It really hasn’t done much for me.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is how you write a friends to lovers, it was so nice to read a story when you could feel the chemistry of the characters and not just them together because the story require to it.

This was a fun and fairly fluffy Regency romance that suits the Lords in Love series well. I've really been enjoying these and Romancing the Heiress is no exception - Phin is lovely! This feels more in tone with Erica Ridley's writing (the co-author of the series) than Darcy Burke's usual slightly darker fare, so fans of the 12 Dukes of Christmas series will probably find this a great place to Burke.

Thanks to Netgalley for a copy of this book, and this is my freely given opinion.

This is book three of the Lord in Love series, and is a rather sweet friends to lovers story of two people who grew up in Marrywell together. Phineas Radford is the owner of the famed batonical gardens that are a cornerstone of the matrimonial festival that Marrywell is famous for, but he is drowning in debt he inherited from his father and is finding that the only way he can see out of his problems is to wed an heiress himself.

Leah Webster left Marrywell 5 years earlier to become a companion to an older lady, leaving behind an untenable situation at her family home. She lost her first position almost a year prior, as her employer, and friend passed on. Now she under the employ of the lady's niece, to be a companion to her debutante daughter, whom she has brought to Marrywell to aid in her search for a husband. It is not as pleasant a situation as her previous job, but she hopes to see her old friends Sadie and Phineas again. Especially Phineas as she has always harboured a crush on him.

Leah and Phin reconnect and revisit the past together through the festival and visits to the garden. When Leah finds out about Phin's situation, she resolves to help him, even if it means letting go of her own dreams as she helps him court her charge. Phin, on seeing his friend Leah again, realizes just how much he has missed her, and that those feelings of childhood love and friendship have grown into something more. But he is still facing the challenges of his debt and what to do to save the gardens.

Leah is also forced to face the challenges of her past, which includes a horrible family life and an abusive mother. But when she does confront this, she finds a conspiracy against her and a wonderful reward that could give her the freedom to pursue her dreams.

This was a sweet childhood crush friends to lovers story that I quite enjoyed. I don't understand though, if the mother was such a witch whom everyone disliked, including her own family, and she was so miserable wit her own life, why no one acted so long ago? Other than Phin's grandfather, there was no other adult else willing to speak out or act on Leah's behalf? That saddened the story quite a bit for me.

3.25 stars out of 5

Hmmm. I really enjoy both of the authors writing this series but sadly, neither book has worked for me.
This book lacked chemistry. These two character were a were believable as friends and even companions.
The hero was ashy washy and seemed to want a “friend” and a separate lover. His preoccupation with obtaining money for his plants was a bit distracting.
Perhaps this series is not for me.

Thank you NetGalley for a good read. Leah left Marrywell seven years ago and now she returns as the companion to a young lady looking for a husband. She was not looking forward to seeing many people but Phineas, her childhood friend who had the Botanical Gardens. Phineas was happy to see her but he needed to marry a heiress. His father lost his money in a bad investment. Mr. Mercer is there not looking for a wife but to see if he can make money at the festival. The Festival is held once a year to find husbands or wives. Leah either wants Phin or she will stay single. She was sure her employer will let her go when the festival is over whether her daughter finds a husband or not. Mrs. Selkirk's aunt was the one who originally hired Leah. but she had died. She said she would take care of Leah. By care she got two months salary and five of her favorite books. If only she had the money to help Phin. But she is not able to help him.

Romancing the Heiress is a short, sweet and slightly spicy historical romance. It's a childhood friends-to-unexpected romance which was refreshing.
Leah is our heroine. She returns home, and seven years after leaving her abusive household, she is back as the companion for a young lady, Genevieve, who's on the hunt for a husband.
Phin, or Phineas, is Leah's childhood best friend and is thrilled to see her again after their years apart. He's struggling financially with the botanical gardens he manages after his grandfather passed away. He thinks marrying an heiress (notably Genevieve) will solve his financial troubles.
Leah has been in love with Phin for years, and coming back home has reopened old wounds. She's being restricted in her outings by her boss, terrified she'll see her family and has to watch as Phin courts another girl, so Leah is having a tough time. She's happy to see some old faces, such as her best friend Sadie.
After a kiss, Phin's feelings for Leah shift, but he's still certain about marrying.
At some point, I found Leah to be slightly naive. When it came to sex, she was honestly clueless for a 26-year-old. Was this realistic? I honestly don't know.
I enjoyed this short story. It had pining, drama, and a fast-paced plot through to the end.
I felt at a slight disadvantage not having read the other books, but I could still understand everything. Although some intense topics were mentioned briefly, they weren't discussed deeply.

A really sweet childhood best friends to lovers novel set once again in the village of Marrywell. I loved seeing Leah’s strength and determination to face her past abuse and win Phin’s heart.

This is a sweet and unexpectedly intensely deep book. It was light enough to read in one day, but challenging enough to consider portions of the book. The hardships the heroine faces are not graphic in detail, but they are still raw in a good way. I truly appreciate the care the author used in handling topics of abuse and addiction, and the redemption that can be had when victims/survivors are able to move past those circumstances. The theme of asking for help and maintaining communication was lovely. Of course, this was a love story, and a beautiful one at that. Childhood friends who fall in love after time apart. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

I received an ARC courtesy of the publisher and NetGalley. The opinions are mine alone.

This is another good book in the Lords in Love series! I love Darcy Burke's writing style!
The chemistry between Leah and Phin is so sweet, with just the right amount of angst for me. I love the dialogue, and the description of Merrywell is great.
The concept of every-other author in the series is really cool, it helps keep things fresh and changes up the tone a bit. I really like it, and I've been really into each book because of it!
I'd recommend if you like the trope of unattainable because of funds, or friends to lovers. It is a fast and entertaining read!

The third book in the Lords in Love series, another great story. Phineas Radford and his long time friend Leah Webster meet again after five years apart. I enjoyed reading their story with its ups and downs get a happy ending. The story is well written with a very good storyline that held my interest until the end. I received a copy of this book via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review.