Absolutely enjoyable book to read, beautifully written and descriptive to perfection. Would recommend.

The coach carrying Alice Ingram and her niece, Beth, along the Great North Road is attacked and the ladies are rescued by a pair of dashing highwaymen and deposited in a wayside inn where Beth meets and falls for Ed, the landlord and Alice has her sprained ankle attended by a somewhat austere doctor. This is a story of double identity, of Alice’s flight from a brutish husband and Beth’s attempts to avoid marrying one. It’s also a double romance, for neither the innkeeper not the doctor are quite what they seem. Though parts of this book were enjoyable there were bits that my brain kept stumbling over as being impractical. The chaps seemed very adept about climbing into bedroom windows as if there was a staircase outside, and I wasn’t sure how Alice intended to flee from her husband merely by changing her name, when her place of refuge was her SISTER. For goodness sake, wouldn’t that be the first place hubby looked? The husband is mentioned a few times but apart from the highwaymen in the opening, all the danger and action is in the last ten percent of the book, which felt slightly out of balance.
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I’m a little bummed to report that this book was a ‘meh’ for me. Lots of time was spent on minute details of the characters’ time but with not much energy or drive. One of the co-authors is a historian in this time period, and so that might be the reason why it is detailed…but ultimately, I didn’t care. The title of the book itself encapsulates the book’s problem – the title is historic and seemingly about something but winds up not really being relevant to the plot.

I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

From the description of one of the authors as an expert in the period, I confess I'd been hoping to immerse in period detail and interesting characterization.

Instead, what I got was a generic romance whose language and tone is mostly modern, with a few period words thrown in. The plot and characterizations are also generic, right down to the constantly twinkling eyes meant to signal the heroes, and "somethings" that cross faces instead of actual characterization.

The niece's behavior is unbelievable for the period, the instant frostiness of the aunt toward the hero generic Regency romance 'conflict.' So, a disappointment for me, but readers who don't care about period detail, standard plot, characters, and language (with a few misspellings here and there) should enjoy this otherwise sprightly entry into a long and popular sub-genre.