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emotional
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A young woman set on marriage engages London's best dressmaker. They enter into a partnership and fall in love along the way. A swoony, closed door, class differences, interracial romance set in Victorian England.
The audio is great and includes the excellent authors note!
Just a bit slow for my taste.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Classism
challenging
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I really enjoyed this book! The romance was slow burn but very sweet indeed. To be honest, I am kind of speechless. This book kinda surprised me! I couldn’t find much on the book before reading it but it was on my TBR and I found it in the library so I thought, why not take a chance! I ended up really enjoying it, even staying up way too late last night to finish it!
Evelyn is a country girl tasked with the success of her entire family’s happiness in one season. Ahmad is a man who cares for his cousin and also is working hard for the success of his family and his business. They find each other in this story and it was a beautiful romance!Two family caretakers finding someone to live life with, love and support mutually.
I related to Ahmad a lot. I am a daughter of two immigrants from Egypt and there is a sense of belonging two places but also never truly belonging anywhere. His story of going through racism and prejudice is actually very enlightening and encourages us to do better!
This would be a 5 star book for me, if not for the occult beliefs (Spiritualism) shown in the book. However, it was portrayed as something that wasn’t true, especially in the eyes of the main character and her friends! Just want to let you know as I didn’t see that in any reviews I had found.
This is a closed door book but there is a lot of physical attraction present in the descriptions and language. It’s hard to describe but just also wanted to let you know in case!
I still recommend this book because it will probably stay with me for a minute and it was very good!
Content Warnings:
Language: None
Spice: Level 2
TW: Occult beliefs (side characters), Racism, Sexual Harassment
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism, Sexual harassment
lighthearted
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Classism
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
It's the 1860s, and Evelyn Maltravers has arrived to London for her first season at the grand old age of three abd twenty, ready to salvage her family's reputation and her younger sisters' futures following a reckless decision made by another sibling. Evie must marry rich, and for this she needs the help of an expert habit maker as she knows her beauty lies not in the ballroom but on the back of her horse. Enter Ahmad Malik, whose skill with needle and thread is only bested by how handsome he is. Immediately there is an attraction between the two but with the opinions of high society in the way, what can they do to make it work.
I listened to this on audiobook and really enjoyed it. While there isn't necessarily insta-love in this book, there is insta-attraction. I would have liked the slow burn to have been built up even more than it was between the two and for it to have taken a bit longer for the two to realise how deeply attracted they were to each other. The historical elements in this book were very good and I appreciated how the author dealt with Ahmad being a POC, half Indian and half British, how he was treated by people as a POC but also as a tradesman, and then his opinions about colonisation and the general wrong ideas Brits had about India and its peoples - and then how Evelyn strived to learn more herself from those affected by British rule, not the colonizers themselves.
As a horse girl I loved the horse element in this book, and really loved the friendship between Evelyn and the Furies and I really look forward to reading the next book which I think was set up really nicely in this one.
I listened to this on audiobook and really enjoyed it. While there isn't necessarily insta-love in this book, there is insta-attraction. I would have liked the slow burn to have been built up even more than it was between the two and for it to have taken a bit longer for the two to realise how deeply attracted they were to each other. The historical elements in this book were very good and I appreciated how the author dealt with Ahmad being a POC, half Indian and half British, how he was treated by people as a POC but also as a tradesman, and then his opinions about colonisation and the general wrong ideas Brits had about India and its peoples - and then how Evelyn strived to learn more herself from those affected by British rule, not the colonizers themselves.
As a horse girl I loved the horse element in this book, and really loved the friendship between Evelyn and the Furies and I really look forward to reading the next book which I think was set up really nicely in this one.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Misogyny, Racism
Minor: Death of parent
hopeful
lighthearted
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This was a really enjoyable read and my first by Mimi Matthews! The historical touches (the pretty horse-breakers, the Victorian spiritualism, etc.) added a lot to the story, and I loved our two main characters. The male main character is biracial and Indian, and the female main character is white, and Matthews navigates the difficulties of interracial marriages at this time - as well as the difficulty in simply existing in the kingdom of your colonizer as an Indian person in the late 1800s (particularly after the uprising of 1857). Matthews is also biracial and Indian and notes in the author's note how Ahmad's story reflects her own feelings of being caught between worlds and cultures. This is slower-paced and a felt a little too long for the central conflict to support, but I'll likely continue the series! This is closed-door, with lots of pining and slow-building tension that is truly delicious.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Classism
Moderate: Misogyny, Pregnancy
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism
Moderate: Racial slurs, Sexual assault, Colonisation
emotional
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This is an excellent historical fiction romance. The setting is clearly well researched and the story is immersed in Victorian Era culture and fashion, with nuance. I do enjoy spicy books, but I found it refreshing to not have explicit spice here. The romance is chaste, with no on page sex scenes, but there was plenty of physical chemistry and intimacy between the characters. I felt their pull towards each other. Their dressmaking interactions were an excellent example of how you can create incredibly sensual moments without there being literal sex. I also felt their friendship and partnership growing the more they interacted. It was refreshing how open and honest they were to each other, yet there was still plenty of pining and tension. Evelyn starts the story somewhat naive due to her upbringing, but she is not willfully ignorant and is physically and emotionally strong. Ahmad is guarded and a bit cynical, but very compassionate and kindhearted. They are both genuinely talented and hard working in their respective areas, and respect each other's abilities. The side characters are interesting, but also serve to move the story forward. I listened to this on audio and I found myself thinking about it all the time when I wasn't listening. I had really high hopes for this one, and it met them. Mimi Matthews is probably going to be a new favorite author for me.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racial slurs, Racism
Minor: Sexual assault, Sexual content, Xenophobia, Pregnancy
hopeful
lighthearted
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, Classism
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I am not sure what to think of this book, but it is absolutely over-hyped in my opinion.
The romance was not at all romantic, and that was the most annoying thing to me. The characters didn't fall in love; they fell in lust. From the moment they met all they did was think about their physical attraction. It did get better throughout the book as they started to build a friendship, but the fact that it was all built on lust still felt gross to me. No relationship can be built on lust and make it very far.
The highlight for me was Evie and Ahmed as individuals. I did not like their relationship with each other but I did like everything else about them. Ahmed's struggles with race seemed very realistic for the time period and I did appreciate that this book got a little more real about issues like that than most historical romance. I also loved Evie's friends and if my main complaint about this book weren't the romance, I'd keep reading the series to get their stories. But I'm worried the romances will be so physically centric I won't enjoy them.
This book didn't have any sexual content, which I appreciate, but still managed to have all the worst attitudes and ideals of books with spice and I want to read romance, not smut.
The romance was not at all romantic, and that was the most annoying thing to me. The characters didn't fall in love; they fell in lust. From the moment they met all they did was think about their physical attraction. It did get better throughout the book as they started to build a friendship, but the fact that it was all built on lust still felt gross to me. No relationship can be built on lust and make it very far.
The highlight for me was Evie and Ahmed as individuals. I did not like their relationship with each other but I did like everything else about them. Ahmed's struggles with race seemed very realistic for the time period and I did appreciate that this book got a little more real about issues like that than most historical romance. I also loved Evie's friends and if my main complaint about this book weren't the romance, I'd keep reading the series to get their stories. But I'm worried the romances will be so physically centric I won't enjoy them.
This book didn't have any sexual content, which I appreciate, but still managed to have all the worst attitudes and ideals of books with spice and I want to read romance, not smut.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism