If historical romance is dead, then Jenny Holiday has resurrected it. 

[NOTE: historical romance is not dead.]

While historical romance is a queen who needs no enhancements to her beauty, it is still quite exciting to see authors finding innovative ways to make historical romance feel fresh for a contemporary audience. 

I think that’s what Jenny Holiday does here. This is a Regency era historical romance that reads like a contemporary romance. The characters possess modern sensibilities - like men with sex positive, progressive points of view. It’s probably historically inaccurate. Does it matter? No. All romance novels are fantasy novels. There is world building in every one of them. 

This is a boys’ trip. Literally, like Vegas, what happens on earls trip stays on earls trip. But obviously all human experiences are made better by women, so when two women unexpectedly join earls trip, they bring humor and depth to the earls’ friend group. And then a very sweet romance unfolds between the main characters. 

I loved this tender, thoughtful book. It has all the things I love about historical romance, plus an added layer of the contemporary ethos of gender parity and self-reflection.