DNF at 50% mark.

All my friends are going nuts over this book, and while I can see why, I finally decided that it's just not my thing. I really liked the reseach into historical detail and the wonderful dialogue and banter, and of course I'm in favour of crossdressing lesbians on a general principle, but the book itself left me cold.

I found the style overly spare and lacking in feeling. I often love books where a lot of the emotion and characterisation is between the lines, but for some reason this one left me completely cold. I often felt that the big emotional scenes were skipped over and then discussed in aftermath, and things sometimes seemed to happen out of order, but I really couldn't tell what the timeline was, so who knows. I wanted more feelings from both the main characters, and more consideration of why they acted as they did (why did Harry change her mind after the Big Plot Twist around the half way mark, for example). I just never got enough of a feel about either of these women to care what happened to them, or if they got together or not.

Which is too bad, because my standards for liking a book about crossdressing lesbians in Regency England are not super high. This should have sailed over them. I just... didn't like it.