Fun Christmas duet!

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Betrothed by Christmas: A Holiday Duet 
by Jess Michaels and Elizabeth Essex 
What at quandary! Two young women know their families want them to marry. Neither wants to be married to an idiotic nobleman with nothing but hunting and other pursuits on their minds. Neither of them want to be relegated to being owned by a husband and the subsequent loss of their freedom. So after a chance meeting at a ball, a few laconic comments about the idiotic gentlemen playing a game where they all but singe their eyebrows off, the two decide to look for wallflower gents to help them out of their predicament.
Where do they look? Why the library of course!
And this is the start of two immeasurably pleasurable, light hearted, Christmas Regency romances that dovetail beautifully.
Think of Ayckbourn's Norman Conquests and how the play happens in three different rooms over three separate plays and you get the idea of how these stories intertwine.
We see each story within the individual's scope but outside the room the other story is going on.
I loved Lady Evangeline's efforts in A Lady’s Gift for Seduction by Jess Michaels, with her scientist Henry Killam and all her fears and the resolution. Full marks to Henry for his patience and determination.
I equally adored Thomasina Lesley's conundrum in A Lady’s Gift for Scandal by Elizabeth Essex . Tamsin of the glasses and managing ways forging ahead with Simon Cathcart who's hiding behind a simplistic outer bearing. Tamsin requires to be 'a little bit ruined' so that she can lead an independent life. Simon is to be the ruiner.
So the fun begins! Ideas hatched at an evening event take on different realities in the fullness of the sunlight.
Christmas cheer indeed. After of course, the requisite struggles for both parties.

 A Passionate Pen ARC via NetGalley

*****

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