Did not finish at 25%
I wasn’t a fan of the infatuation at first sight to begin with, and then I saw that one of the heroines is raped later in the book, which turned me off of it completely.

DNFing around the 36% mark. Not just because there is rape without trigger warning (in the book itself) but because it is unnecessarily graphic and so is the way the supposed good guy helps the heroine by going again into graphic questions on what happened to her. utterly gross and unnecessary in what was otherwise shaping to be a lovely romance.

DNF @ 43%

I tried to read this book. Twice, The first time, I didn't even make it a quarter of the way through. The second time, I almost made it to the 50% mark - and realized I didn't care to read anymore.

It's not that this book is... bad. It's just very dull. The characters have no real personality, and I still am not sure why our main characters are attracted to each other - aside from lust and the fact that they're the only two women into women.

Anyway, I give up. It's far too long for the dull plotlines it has.

I enjoy a good F/F historical romance and The Lady and Her Secret Lover is a sexy yet lovely one. Add in a reunion story and I love it all!

Yes to F/F HR! I didn't realize how much I needed this book in my life until I was halfway through it. I'm so happy it was added to NG because typically myself and my co-bloggers spend way too much energy actively seeking out F/F romance. Which tells you just how much of a lack of awareness and promotion there is in the subgenre.

This is one of those books that you can easily read in one sitting, that delves just as deep as you want it to into the important issues from the time period, while providing the same kind of sweeping romance you might come to expect from historical romance at large.

Is it always easy to read? No. These characters face some serious conflict. But in the end, everything is worth it, and I loved how REAL it all felt.

Unfortunately, this title ended up not being a good fit for me. I love the premise and the romance is sweet, but the writing style didn’t work for me.

I wanted to love this one, but it fell into the realm of the cliché. I would be remiss if I didn't question the need for that consensual yet uncomfortable heterosexual sex scene with one of the lesbian characters. Very off-putting.

This book most definitely scratches the itch for vivid historical LESBIAN romance. This was such a delightful read. Not to be confused with the plot itself being delightful, as there are several dark moments (trigger warning for sexual assault). But it was so refreshing and lovingly written. My only issues with this book are the sometimes-flat writing, the somewhat instalove (which I can honestly forgive because it's such a lesbian thing to fall deep into love instantly lol), and the sexual assault plot point. I felt that last thing was unnecessary, especially when sexual violence against lesbians is so often found in content about sapphic women. Otherwise, I thoroughly enjoyed this one and would love to read more f/f from this author.

I loved this book!! This is the second book I read from this author and loved! Historical Fiction is my favorite genre and this book is one reason why!!

I laughed. I cried. I fell in love. This couple is everything I wanted them to be. I need MORE from them!!

I requested this book from NetGalley because I have read the companion book The Duke and the Baron. I was hoping the book would fill in the backstory of Louisa and Ellie. There is just so much violence that it was put on the DNF pile.

I voluntarily reviewed an ARC provided by NetGalley. Thank you.

I'm conflicted. This is the first lesbian historical fiction I have ever read and I'm so happy a book this type is being published, so I was really excited about it, but it felt sort of flat to me. I was having trouble connecting with the characters. I actually couldn't even finish it because I felt it a bit boring. I read the first half and ended up skimming the last half of the book. I'm excited to see more books about woman in love in historical fiction, especially with covers like this book has! Love the cover and the idea, but this one specifically, not that much.

I’m always on the lookout for f/f historical fiction, because if there’s anything I think is lacking it’s that. So, when I saw this book, I was very excited. I saw the content warning for sexual assault, and I was like, okay, but still hopeful. And then I read the book.

For me, this is one of those books that could have been so good, but just fell into some grim homophobic tropes. The potential was there! But it just wasn’t met.

The Lady and Her Secret Lover is about Louisa and Ellie, two members of the ton, whose mothers are pushing for them to find husbands, and soon. But neither of them are all that interested in marrying, and instead find companionship in each other.

WHAT I LIKED:

> There was an unambiguously happy ending! There was a found family with a polyamorous throuple (urgh that word)! They were finally left in peace!

> That was, unfortunately, about the sum total of what I liked.

WHAT I DISLIKED, OR EVEN HATED AT SOME POINTS:

> I’m gonna start with dislike and build up to hate in this.

> I wasn’t the biggest fan of the writing, to be honest. It was kind of ridiculous and purple-prosey, but if that had been the least of my issues I could have dealt with it.

> Instalove? I raise you love (and associated gushing) at first sight. As in, literally first sight. They had only met a total of four times when they started confessing their love for one another. Even when two people click most naturally, surely you’re not going to be confessing love after four meetings. It was all “oh she’s an angel”-this, “oh she’s so lovely I can’t speak”-that. It was tedious, to be honest. At a quarter in, they had met four times, kissed once, and already planned to run away and live as spinsters (seriously, if they had followed through with that plan, we’d all be a lot happier). This spanned about five days of the book.

> Louisa’s father has someone rape her (for god knows what reason, to check if she’s a virgin or something? I don’t know because I skimmed it). This is a genuine plot point. And a suspicious part of me wonders if this was some kind of corrective rape. Because, earlier, we get a hint that Louisa’s stepmother knows about her and Ellie, so is it such a huge jump to think maybe her father knows too? Either way, it was awful, but had it been given the due it deserved, then maybe it could have been less so. Instead, it’s relevant for a few chapters and then forgotten. Did you know that rape and sexual assault are among the traumatic events associated with the highest rates of PTSD? So to have Louisa seem to forget about this within a few days (granted she also gets beaten up by her father and sent to a home for reformed prostitutes – maybe it all blurred into one and she repressed it), smacks of it being not dealt with particularly well. But then again, we also get a three year time jump immediately afterwards, so don’t actually get to see any of Louisa. Maybe that’s it.

> Okay, this is the one that really gets me angry. Ellie is a lesbian. She shows no attraction towards men (in the text, she says she wouldn’t ever want to marry a man), she only only shows attraction towards Louisa. She’s a lesbian. She marries Hugh so that she and Louisa, and he, Charles and Amelia, can all live together without society being suspicious. There’s a wedding night. Ellie wants kids. Can you see where I’m going with this? Hugh and Ellie have sex. Now. If Ellie was bi, I’d have no problem with this. But Ellie is a lesbian. And, sure, it’s consensual, but it’s the most uncomfortable a sex scene has ever made me. Neither of them really want it. Amelia has to come in and turn Hugh on, so that he can actually get it up. Ellie literally talks about “close your eyes and think of England”. I saw someone refer to this scene as selfless. I would use the word sickening instead. Because it feels kind of violent, for lack of a better word, to have your lesbian character have sex with a man, no matter how consensual it is. And I know that this probably happened a lot in those days, but when you’re reading it in 2019 and the author has made this conscious decision? It’s bad, scoob. And that’s why I also added it into the content warnings.

So, overall, this book could have been so good. The found family? Letting lesbians get a happy ending? It had the potential. It just didn’t live up to it.

Okay, so I got this because that cover art is amazing, and I love historical fiction with LGBT characters in it.The blurb felt like it was one of those "bodice rippers" romances, but with lesbians, and I had to see what it was all about. I noticed in my advanced copy that the book has illustrations in it, but due to file sizes we aren't able to view them. Not a big deal, but I bet they're much better than the story they are based on. Man, the story is such a disappointment.

It starts out fine, with Louisa and Ellie, two women who aren't particularly fond of London's ball season. Louisa, because this is her third year and she feels the pressure to find a suitable husband before she officially becomes a spinster at the young age of around twenty. Ellie is a debutante and she just doesn't like the people and the parties. But man, when their eyes meet, its instant chemistry and they feel all the things. Its amazing how much pining they do even though they are right in front of each other.

From there, it could have been a simple lusty story about the two secret lovers, but there's so much drama added in, with Ellie's impending marriage to a Duke, and Louisa's plotting to get her hitch to Louisa's long time dear friend Hugh even though Hugh is in love with Amelia, another young noble stuck in the plot for reasons. Its an angst ridden mess that has way too many problematic plot points for comfort.

It is a cheesy romance, which is fine, and if you're a fan of the series, I can't see why you wouldn't want to pick this one up. It just wasn't for me, which is so disappointing, because that cover deserves a better book.

When Ellie and Lou fall in love, it's with great abandon. And they have grand ideas. A small cottage, a garden, a goat to manage the weeds, sheep for wool to knit. But the truth of the matter lies in the reality. Louisa must marry, to the satisfaction of her father, and so must Ellie—whose family hopes for a title to add legitimacy to their status, opening doors in the ton.

But when Louisa’s father discovers them together nothing can ever be the same. A friend rescues Louisa from a horrible fate, sending her into hiding for her own protection. For three long years, Louisa remains in exile out of fear of what her father could do.

Necessity returns Louisa to London, and as soon as she does, the memories of her beautiful Ellie haunt her. But Louisa has no idea if Ellie is even here, or unmarried, or still in want of her as Louisa is and has been since that first moment she saw her across the shimmering ballroom.

Louisa fears discovering the truth of it all, that she was but a passing fancy born of the excitement of the heat of a first season. Will she find Ellie? Will the woman still want her? And even if so, what can they do now that they couldn’t do before?

Nothing has changed, but everything is different.

This isn't my usual historical read. That being said although the story is f2f in content it is well written and the overall story is a good one.
I probably would not consider other books in the series though as the erotic content is a bit more than expected.
I gave this book 3.25 of 5.0 stars for plot, storyline and characterization.
Although it contains erotica it is tastefully done but still not my cup of tea.
I received a complimentary ARC of this book to read. This in no way affected my opinion of this book which I read and reviewed voluntarily.

This was lovely and sweet but that it really. I didn’t connect much with either heroine but I truly believe books like these are necessary. We need more wlw books in the world especially historical romance. I just hope that other books will do a better job of actually including some kind of historical detail.

"When Ellie and Lou fall in love, it is with great abandon. And they have grand ideas. A small cottage, a garden, a goat to manage the weeds, sheep for wool to knit.

But the truth of the matter lies in the reality. Louisa must marry, to the satisfaction of her father, and so must Ellie - whose family hopes for a title to add legitimacy to their status, opening doors in the ton. And when Louisa’s father discovers them together nothing can ever be the same.

A friend rescues Louisa from a horrible fate, sending her into hiding for her own protection. For three long years, Louisa remains in exile out of fear of what her father could do.

Necessity returns Louisa to London, and as soon as she does, the memories of her beautiful Ellie haunt her. But Louisa has no idea if Ellie is even here, or unmarried, or still in want of her as Louisa is and has been since that first moment she saw her across the shimmering ballroom. Louisa fears discovering the truth of it all, that she was but a passing fancy born of the excitement of the heat of a first season.

Will she find Ellie? Will the woman still want her? And even if so, what can they do now that they couldn’t do before?

Nothing has changed, but everything is different."

I'm liking this trend of mainstream romance embracing LGBTQ relationships in other eras.

I thought that this book was adorable. I've not seen much f/f historical romance, and I really enjoyed reading about how all five main characters found a solution in a semi-polyamorous relationship - it definitely made me interested to read the companion novel, The Duke and the Baron. It's kind of sappy and unrealistic, but the ending feels so warm and lovely and safe that it made me beam.

There is a graphic rape scene, which could have been wholly excised without affecting the plot, so it loses a star there for me, but overall, this was a very enjoyable read! (The review copy was provided without illustrations so I can't comment on how these complement the story - I didn't feel anything was lacking without them, certainly).

God, I wanted to love this book so much. I’ve swooned over the ethereal cover, I whined at my friends how nervous the blurb made me and how much I wanted the book to be amazing. When it appeared on NetGalley, I snatched it up immediately. I was ready! I was hopeful! I was ready to be wooed! It was going to be great!

Well, it wasn’t.

I’m going to recap the plot of this story now. If you don’t want to get spoiled, skip the next…. entire review, really. But frankly, you should stay, because I don’t recommend this book to anyone, and ultimately, knowing all the fucked up shit beforehands might make you less wary to read it. I have to give the author props for putting TWs and a summary at the start of the book, which was the only reason I didn’t throw my reader through the window.

Lady Luisa, starting her third season and supposedly deep into spinsterhood, meets Ellie, a rich heiress fresh off her first debut season, and they immediately hit it off. They form a deep friendship that turns into love. They’re completely infatuated after only few meetings, and realize that this is it, this is who they want to spend the rest of their life with. They dream of a little cottage, far from people, with some chickens and a goat, where they could live their life freely. This is the first 40% and I was absolutely on board.

This is where it all goes to hell. Luisa’s father decides to punish her for not having married yet (after only three years) and has her raped. Then, he walks in on Luisa and Ellie kissing, throws Ellie from his house, beats Luisa up, disowns her and sends her to an asylum. Well, that was a disgusting paragraph I just had to type out. Luisa gets saved by her friend Hugh, who hides her as a lady’s maid for his childhood love Amelia.

And since this book is a companion book for The Duke and The Baron, I’m going to explain what’s going on in there. See, usually, companion book means that while the stories are entwined, they can still be read as standalone. Think A Fashionable Indulgence/A Seditious Affair by KJ Charles. Not here. The second half of TLAHSL gets hijacked by these new characters we have no reason to care about, except maybe Hugh who did help Luisa a lot. Hugh, baron Endsleigh, has been in love with his childhood neighbour friend, Lady Amelia his whole life. Amelia is supposed to marry their other neighbour, Charles, Duke of Castleberry. Amelia is in love with both, they are both in love with her. Hugh feels shitty, because she’s supposed to marry Charles, and he just can’t compare to a dukedom. I’m sure we are all heartbroken about it. The thing is, Amelia has an unspecified mental illness (and I have Thoughts on that that I’ll get to later) that means she can never be alone, lest she goes catatonic, and she needs both her guys, even if they despise each other. Needless to say, it all ends in a menage.

So Hugh saves Luisa, and sets her up as Amelia’s maid, and tells Ellie she must forget Luisa, which Ellie of course doesn’t. Three years pass and eventually, Ellie wears Hugh down enough to arrange a meeting. Love is professed, tears are shed, embraces are… embraced. Luisa then explain she can’t just run away with Ellie, since she cares too much about Amelia’s wellbeing and can’t abandon her. Eventually, Ellie figures it all out! Since Amelia must marry Charles, she will marry Hugh, and they can all be happy and safe together! So they do. At one of the weddings, Luisa’s father recognizes her, tries to forcibly take her away, Charles steps in and tells him to fuck off. After the weddings, they all travel to the country, Hugh and Ellie have sex to conceive, few months later babies are born, The End, thank god.



Let’s start with the positives, because there were some. While Luisa and Ellie fell in love very fast, I didn’t mind at all. Those were two lonely souls who finally found someone to love. Their relationship was beautiful, their longing so desperate. There was some incredibly beautiful prose in the first third of the book; so beautiful that I was overwhelmed by my emotions and started straight up (gay up?) sobbing on the train. This passage was amazing:

Louisa took a deep breath.

Dear God, please give me a sign, some small piece of hope. I wish to be good and true, but right this moment I’m having a difficult time. I’m certain You’re busy—I’m certain you’re busy with so many pressing issues, but if you can see it in Your infinite wisdom that I should be on this path…please God, give me a star to follow.

***

Luisa stopped when she came to the fabric of [Ellie’s] gown. The white linen was carefully embroidered with hundreds of diminutive bursts of color in a pale blue silk thread that shimmered against the simple background. Once again Louisa couldn’t move as her breath stole from her. “You’re covered in stars,” she choked out the whisper, breathed it really, so quiet she hadn’t even heard the words though she knew she’d formed them. “You’re…you’re covered in stars.” The tears came readily then, coursing her cheeks and skimming her neck and collarbone. Ellie’s eyes widened,

This is poetry! This is gorgeous! I want to take this scene on a date! Why couldn’t the book be just scenes like this!!! Why all the explicit nasty shit!! So yes, the first third is beautiful and soft and lovely and has some gorgeous writing. The other thing I liked was Hugh, who was generally a really good, caring friend.

Now, let’s get to the nasty parts, which is, unfortunately, most of them. Heavy tws from here on! First of all, the rape scene was completely unnecessary. It was explicit, it was long, it put us into Luisa’s skin as she was being violated. It was disgusting. It also has zero impact on the plot. The author just decided Luisa’s father has to be a monster so she made him arrange this. But we already know he’s a monster because of the next nasty shit!! This was completely unnecessary!! Violent explicit rape scenes are always unnecessary, but like I said, this one has zero impact on the story OR Luisa. In the next scene, when Ellie is comforting Luisa the next day and they’re kissing and her father walks in on them and starts beating Luisa, I had to skip whole pages. I was so disturbed, and I’m not even too sensitive to these situations. I can’t imagine how a reader with these triggers would feel. “TW: sexual assault” doesn’t even cover this… whole thing. I skipped pages and ended with Luisa in an asylum and I frankly don’t know why I didn’t stop reading right there. Maybe I naively thought it would get better. Maybe I like punishing myself.

Let’s go to Amelia. I was incredibly uncomfortable with her portrayal and her mysterious mentall illness. At first I thought she had anxiety, then I thought she was probably on the autistic spectrum, but I couldn’t really pinpoint it down. I was uncomfortable with the fact she’s written as completely unable to live without certain people; in one scene Hugh walks out on them and she completely shuts down. Hugh forbids Luisa to leave Amelia because she’d waste away. It’s an extremely dehumanizing portrayal. But at the same time, I glanced at the review for her own book and the absolutely disgusting ableist language in some of the reviews made me furious. Y’all didn’t have to contribute to the poor woman’s dehumanization, god fucking dammit.

The next part- the marriage and the baby. Ellie and Hugh marry, so all of them can be safely together. Unfortunately, since Hugh is a baron, he needs a baby, and Ellie and Amelia just decide Hugh and Ellie are gonna have sex to get a baby. If handled well, it’s not a scenario I’d be opposed to. Alas, it’s handled about as well as a fucking sledgehammer. First of all, Hugh is very uncomfortable with the situation. He doesn’t want to fuck Ellie, he even suggests adoption! But she refuses that and calls in Amelia, who gets him all horny and tells him to go fuck Ellie. Okay, weird and uncomfortable, but okay. Then we proceed to have an explicit scene of the two of them having sex, complete with gradual proclamations of love and affection, them explaiming how beautiful their baby is going to be, his proclamations of how he hopes it’s a little girl who looks like her because she’s beautiful, and that goes on for about a whole chapter, and at that point, I thought I started dissociating. I couldn’t believe this shit!! This was an explicit scene of a LESBIAN PROTAGONIST in a LESBIAN ROMANCE having explicit, prolonged sex with a male character. The book makes it clear both Ellie and Luisa are lesbian!! Not bi!!! Lesbian!!!!!!!!!

Then we jump 9 months into the future and get a graphic birthing scene and uh, as someone with extreme pregnancy-related dysphoria, that wasn’t fun to read either. Not to mention that for a bit, it looks like Ellie isn’t going to make it, something I wouldn’t worry about in a regular romance, but this book already pulled so much shit, I couldn’t trust it. In the end, Ellie and Luisa end up in a kind of fivesome menage with the other three, except not really, except kind of????? If it was advertised, I’d be maybe okay with that, but the way it’s portrayed, it’s really weird. Oh and let’s not forget both the lesbians kissing Hugh in the end. That was something.

I’m sure I missed something, because there was a lot going on. Ultimately, I’m just bitter, and angry, because there was a potential in this book, dammit. The promise in the first third was real! But no, we can’t have nice things.

While sensual, lovely, and needed in this heteronormative and over-saturated genre, The Lady and Her Secret Lover comes off a bit too sentimental, colourless, and nauseatingly sappy. It's appreciated for its novelty and perhaps other readers will be more tolerant of its depthless infatuation. At the very least I hope it encourages other similar wlw books to enter the genre.