When magical seamstress Niamh is contracted to make the wedding clothes for a royal wedding, she’s determined to make her name and her fortune. But never in her wildest dreams does she think it’ll lead to political unrest, blackmail, and a romance with the groom – the prince of Avaland.
Disclaimer: This book and I may not have been a great match, because the leads are both people-pleasers of the first water, and I am a very self-pleasing person who enjoys saying the word ‘no’ a lot. Many, many times during this book I wanted to reach inside and shake Niamh by her shoulders. It was very tough.
That said, this is a perfectly charming little forbidden romance – not only is Kit already engaged for the sake of politics, not only is Niamh a mere dressmaker, but the overwhelming tension between their nations means that they really should not be together, and therefore we have a lot of pining. I also really liked all the supporting characters, whose storylines often interested me more that Niamh and Kit – Jack as a foil for Niamh was an especially interesting take.
However, I must say that not a lot happens? The magic is cool but is actually rather incidental to the main plot of the story – I feel like it could have been excised to make a perfectly typical Regency romance. And after the build up of the story, the way things resolved (‘just say no!’), even though they made sense for the characters, was rather underwhelming. Also, it may be period typical but the sheer amount of smoking Kit does grosses me out. What’s the point of investing in the romance if he’s just going to die of emphysema at fifty?
I listened to an audiobook of this story, which is narrated by Fran Burgoyne. I think she did a great job of juggling all the accents of the characters, even if I sometimes mixed up her Jack-voice and Sinclair-voice.
Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.