I loved the first half of this story. It endeared me to the main characters and had me rooting for them and their happiness. However, the second half of this story seemed to be heavily reliant on shock value and primarily served to set up forthcoming romantic pairings in additional books.

I am also concerned with the handling of sensitive content. It is established early on that our heroine has been subjected to SA and that her father has, at best, turned a blind eye to it and, at worst, facilitated it. While this is handled appropriately and serves the plot, the addition of child molestation and murder was a shocking inclusion that felt ultimately unnecessary and all too casually addressed.

This was definitely a lovely read. More nuanced and much more depth than a lot of other historical romances and interesting characters, as well. 4/5.

This book was rough - so often historical fiction is couched in soft language, but this book really showed the harsh possibility in the lack of independence afforded to women in these times. Anne was heavily abused by both her father and the man she was promised to, leaving her with no options but to attempt taking her escape on her own shoulders. The escape into the arms of another man was inevitable, but Richard was definitely the right one for her to choose. Enjoyable watching the real villains defeated.

Fantastic beginning to a lovely series. A page turner and a new lesson to the very end. This history within was interesting.