This is one of the quietest love stories I've read - and, perhaps, the most faithful to its Cinderella inspiration. Our female main character, Sophia, is overlooked and unloved, taken in by neglectful relatives and pushed into the shadows of her home and small town, a "mouse" quietly observing as village life unfolds around her. When the male main character, Vincent, blinded at a young age in battle and now in possession of a title, returns to his childhood home, he is almost immediately caught in a wedding scheme concocted by Sophia's title-chasing relatives. The "mouse" saves him from a marriage trap, and he repays her kindness with a marriage proposal of his own. What begins as a marriage of convenience - one that will save her from destitution and one that will afford him greater independence from his family - slowly becomes more. 

This is a story where two people take tender care of each other, where they respect each other's independence and agency, where they fall in love through small conversations and gestures and confidences. It's quiet and earnest from start to finish. Historical romance has a complicated history with disabled main characters, and I was so pleased that this wasn't built as a "scarred hero" story, and that our blind main character is ultimately not the one in need of true rescue. Where it does stray into frustrating commentary on "overcoming" disability and resisting "being a victim" in one encounter, it challenges elsewhere ideas of blindness and disability and champions the ways in which disabled people live full and independent lives (and the ways they've done so throughout history). I love how important accessibility is to this story, as they renovate the estate to better suit his physical needs, and how these modifications are treated, appropriately, not as "gifts" to him - accessibility in his own home is something he deserves to have, full stop. While he is often infantilized by other characters in the story - including his own family members - he is never condescended to by the narrative or his partner, and I appreciated seeing ableism challenged consistently on page. 

This was my first by Balogh, and I look forward to reading the other installments in the Survivors Club series now!

I really really enjoyed this one, and I’m not normally big on historical romance. Very well written with lovable characters!