Y'all! This book is so delightful!

I've dipped in and out of the Spindle Cover series (I seem to have missed one or two, entirely by accident and this will be rectified soon), but it's wonderful. Tessa Dare is a queen of the genre for good reason and someone I think aspiring Regency authors should study with care. One of her great gifts is to make a series seem connected, but not serialized. This allows new folks to meet her characters in any order they so please without feeling like they're being excluded from a party. She instead invites folks to join the tribe she's writing about, guaranteeing they'll be smitten with each couple, regardless of the order in which they meet them.

LORD DASHWOOD MISSED OUT is a great place to start with Dare's writing if you're not familiar with it. It's classic her, as it were, but as a novella, the time commitment isn't the highest. There's misunderstandings and hijinks, sassy dialogue and a hero and heroine who are perfectly matched...and we know it and they know it, but boy are they scared of it.

One of the common frustrations for folks who read novellas is that all the action happens so quickly; it's hard to believe it happened at all. Dare circumvents that in this novel by establishing up front these folks have a history with a capital H. That history is wrapped around them and informs every breath they take in each other's presence. And boy, is it a fun one. I will spoil nothing, but I will say this: if you like sassafrass women and dashing gents, are partial to a "trapped in a snowstorm" trope, and like quick snapshots of joy, then pick up LORD DASHWOOD MISSED OUT.