Linz Loves Romance

If a book could be a cozy sweater that gave you the giggles and had you fanning your face, this would be it. I adore Lisa Kleypas' historicals and this was a great one. 

Phoebe, daughter of one of the most loved heroes in Romancelandia, has a lot of backstory to sift through. She's a young widow with two small children. She meets West Ravenel, who was supposedly her former husband's childhood bully, at her brother's wedding. With other authors, I might have been wary about how this would shake out. However, with Kleypas, an author I trust, I stuck with it and the explanation made sense to me. There are a lot of themes in this book although it didn't feel heavy handed: found family, traditional vs new ideas, trusting in yourself, and even (maybe this is just me) the idea that life is for the living. Both West and Phoebe are haunted, in a sense, by promises and relationships with important people who have died. Kleypas touches on those points but that's never the focus nor are we swamped in flashbacks. 

From meet-cute and flirting at the dinner table to sexytimes after looking at account ledgers (yes, really), this book was great. I loved Phoebe and West together. Their steamy scenes were hot. I love a hero who is just lost on the heroine, pretty much from day one, and that was West. Phoebe fell for him pretty fast too but she had to get past some of her reservations about moving on from her grief. 

Characters from previous books in both series, The Ravenels and The Wallflowers, strengthened the story. I'm not really a fan of Devon, but the relationship between the brothers was nice. Sebastian, Phoebe's father, has a lot of presence. His scenes were really well done. 

I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it. This book was so hard to put down. :)