THE LOVE POTION is the first title in Katherine Lyons’ new series My Lady’s Potions. It features Kynthea Petrelli, poor relation and companion to Lady Zoe, and Ras Stace, Duke of Harle. Kynthea is tasked with trying to keep her very young cousin in line while they both have a season and try to find husbands. Zoe is determined to marry Ras almost entirely for his stables and purchases a love potion to achieve this goal. She forces Kynthea to administer the potion, setting everything into motion. The potion does nothing to draw Ras’s attention to Zoe, however, he finds himself drawn to Kynthea. As they grow closer, each has to admit their relationship might be impossible due to the difference in their situations.

I gave this title five stars on Goodreads because I love it and only have one minor complaint about the entire thing. I was expecting more of a fantasy feel to this because of the element of the love potion, but it is written so realistically that the love potion is really just the catalyst for a meet-cute and is never actually shown to work. I ended up preferring that the story stay grounded in this way.

Ras is a great hero and his sense of humor is my favorite kind: dry wit. I found myself smiling and chuckling so many times as he and Kynthea banter back and forth and he speaks so deadpan it’s difficult to tell if he’s joking or not. Kynthea is the perfect heroine for him as she does not care that he’s a duke and has no problem standing up to him. She also has far more patience than I, because I would have lost it on Zoe (more on that in a moment) and she never really does. Some of this is due to being Zoe’s companion and depending on her parents for her livelihood, but it’s mostly because Kynthea is just that good of a person.

Kynthea goes along with Zoe as she purchases the love potion and even forgives Zoe for tripping her and forcing her to spill the potion on Ras. I understand up to a point that she is being paid by Zoe’s family and that she doesn’t have a lot of options so she cannot do much to Zoe, but she continually defends her, too, telling Ras that Zoe truly means well and is actually quite a sweet girl who just get blinded by her ambitions when she wants something. It gets a little aggravating, to be honest, and I wanted Zoe to end up with some kind of comeuppance. However, this is not enough to detract from the rest of the story.

THE LOVE POTION is my first title by Katherine Lyons, but it won’t be my last. I already cannot wait for the next installment in this series!!