Caroline Lindley is determined that her new romance novel will be her best one yet. Fantasy! Formal gowns! Fencing! And, of course, a twentysomething heroine to star in an enemies-to-lovers plot with all of Caroline’s favourite tropes. But Lady Rosamund Hawkhurst is a thirty-six-year-old widow with two children, her sole focus is facilitating a peace treaty between her adopted nation and her homeland, and she flatly refuses to take the correct approach to there being Only One Bed. What’s an author to do? If you loved Stranger Than Fiction and The Princess Bride, you will soon find yourself cheering on enemies-to-BFFs Rosamund and Caroline as together they learn what it means to be the hero of your own story.
I bought the book because I very much enjoy the author's videos on Youtube, and the Fantasy Heroine series of shorts was delightful. So I went in expecting to like the book (I already knew the plot and enjoy the Bearup's humor, which presumably translates from video to page). At the same time, I expected to have it give it some grace, being written by a Youtube content producer who has never written (nor considered writing) a book before and accomplished it in roughly a year.
Honestly, I thought the book was better than most recent fantasy I've read. It's utterly delightful and much more fleshed-out than the videos. Without already knowing it, I'd never have expected this was essentially a fan-service by someone who has never tried to write a book before nor ever intends to write one again--it's actually a well-written book. (And for those of us who care: the editing is superb--it's not riddled with errors like some self-published novels and even some mainstream.) In contrast to the dark and gritty stories that have become so popular recently, it's the sort of light, clean, swashbuckling romance that tends to find a permanent place on my shelves.
And it's actually romantic. Very slow-burn, and the payoff is wonderful in the end. The romantic tropes are frequently subverted, but not in the usual ways (as some subverted romantic tropes have become so common that they're cliché.) As much as it jokes about being Enemies-to-Lovers, it isn't really; there's no heated bickering with sparks flying that accumulates to the leads letting passion take the better of them. Rosamund and Leo are way too pragmatic and, honestly, way too kind. She's dealing with grief and fear for her children; he's doing his best to protect her (and not just physically--emotionally, she's been through the ringer and he's very sensitive about it).
People like to liken anything and everything to The Princess Bride; but this is one instance where I'd say, if you like the Princess Bride film, there's a good chance you'll like this book. It's similar low-magic fantasy, with sword-fighting, a bit of revenge/justice, and, eventually, true love. The plots aren't alike, but it has a comparable light-hearted, swashbuckling character to it, along with the sense that it's a story being told (or in this case, written) with "real-world" intrusions. Just delightful.
