A very well done and complex story. If you like a slow burn romance, you'll love this book, because there is 300 pages of slow burn before the main characters become physically intimate.
The heroine, Libby, has one goal in life, to become a doctor, but because women are not allowed to attend medical school in the 19th century, she disguises herself as a man. The hero, Ziyaeddin, is also pretending to be somebody else. He's a talented portrait artist, but he's also actually the exiled heir of a small Middle Eastern kingdom.
The writing is beautifully descriptive, and I loved all the characters. After reading hundreds of historical romances over the years, the plots are usually predictable, but this story was so original that I had no idea where it was going, or how the author would get to a believable HEA. Yet she did! I adored the ending.
I did not realize until I was well into it, that this book was the 4th of a series, but it made no difference, it works fine as a standalone. 5 stars.
The heroine, Libby, has one goal in life, to become a doctor, but because women are not allowed to attend medical school in the 19th century, she disguises herself as a man. The hero, Ziyaeddin, is also pretending to be somebody else. He's a talented portrait artist, but he's also actually the exiled heir of a small Middle Eastern kingdom.
The writing is beautifully descriptive, and I loved all the characters. After reading hundreds of historical romances over the years, the plots are usually predictable, but this story was so original that I had no idea where it was going, or how the author would get to a believable HEA. Yet she did! I adored the ending.
I did not realize until I was well into it, that this book was the 4th of a series, but it made no difference, it works fine as a standalone. 5 stars.
