⭐ 5/5
🌶️ 4/5

Wow. Really, wow. This was SUCH a good book. I'm not even sure what to say about it other than GO READ IT RIGHT NOW.

📝 The plotlines were varied and engaging and everything was followed through beautifully. The MCs are relatable and lovable. They make sense as a couple. Their flaws and obstacles fit with their personalities and circumstances. There was humor and ridiculousness but also some very sincere and deeply emotional scenes. (My 😢 count: 1x tearing up, 1x full on weeping.)

📝 Oh and one of the marks of great world building: I cannot wait to get more books in this series! I am desperate to learn more about the side characters! I won't even say which ones for fear of spoiling anything. But all the side characters seemed to have rich lives and thoughts of their own and were fully fleshed out.

🎧 The narration for the audiobook was excellent (the book was dual POV, with a single female narrator, Mhairi Morrison). 

🌶️ There were a few (I think 3? I didn't keep track) detailed spicy scenes and they were all 🔥🔥🔥

ℹ️📗☠️💚 This isn't information that's in the book, but fun ("fun") fact: in the mid- to late 19th century, the popular and brilliant emerald green color found on Belvoir's books (and many other products produced primarily in the Victorian era) was often achieved by use of arsenic in the coloring process, making the books mildly poisonous! But since Belvoir's is a small press of high quality (not mass market), and regency era is a bit earlier than the boom in emerald green, it's likely Belvoir's particular books were not full of poison. Anyways none of that bummer stuff comes up in this book, this is just my weird dark brain sharing info with y'all.
(Check out the University of Delaware's Poison Book Project if you want to learn more.)