Rose Leyton is stuck at the Duke of Beckworth’s country estate waiting for the return of her betrothed. If it wasn’t for the handsome assistant land agent, Mr. Colin Ford, she might believe she had ceased to exist at all. But when her intended arrives things aren’t quite how she expected.

As the youngest son of an impoverished peer, Colin is all too aware of how it feels to be ignored. His impulsive offer to save Miss Leyton from an unwanted marriage quickly becomes more serious than either of them anticipated. Can they both step out of the shadows and find a way to true independence and happiness.

When matrimonial matters don’t go quite as planned, can one jilted bride and an unlikely hero save the day?

YES! YEEES! Good Lord, you have no idea how much I missed Pearce’s writing like this. The last book I was so excited to read was the Carina Press paranormal duology, that was freaking awesome! 

And this novella has the best thing ever: a male protagonist who is not a jerk! He is pretty cute and adorable. Colin is just what every male protagonist should be: reasonable, kind, in love with our female protagonist and caring. Rose is also nice even though she could be a little better, sometimes there is a little drama but it gets solved pretty quickly, which I’m glad. I prefer the interactions between Rose and Colin and not really the “misunderstanding” dramas that is very popular in the romance genre. I like their friendship and the way they connected throughout the story and for 99 cents don't even think twice.

This is what I want to see in a romance: two people caring for each other and doing things that people do when they're in love: being kind and cute with each other. Couples may argue  but it angers me that the romance genre has been spreading assholes as male heroes and weak females as protagonists. We should encourage love as it is: love starts from a friendship and Colin cares for Rose even before he falls in love with her, he wants to protect her and Rose sees in Colin a person she can trust, that she can talk to, that she can go to when times are not so good. I don't believe that they are a couple because the author decided that that was how it was going to be, I really bought that they had an attraction going on and that they were going to work as two people together.

The novella is an "introduction" to a series and I was sad that I wasn’t going to have these protagonists again as the following novella is by a different author, Suzanna Medeiros, who is a famous historical writer, but I never read anything from her. I don’t know, Pearce did raise the bar and I can only hope that the following books will be as entertaining and amazing as this one. Also Mrs. Pearce, please, that Elias Warner book needs to happen!