You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!
This HaBO request is from J, who is looking for this romance with Regency cosplay:
I think I read this around 2014 or 2015. The heroine is some kind of Regency expert and she’s invited to this country house, which has been restored, and the guests are supposed to dress in period costume and live as though they are in Regency England.
There’s an age difference between her and the hero – I think she’s older, which isn’t as common.
There’s also a subplot with the gay couple who run the spa/retreat and one of their employees. I think it’s a little one sided.
The heroine is scattering her recently deceased husband’s ashes at the beginning of the book and there’s some angst over being attracted to the hero, who I think is a fellow guest. It’s resolved by the heroine discovering her late husband’s affair with a student, so she suddenly feels no guilt.
I think it was HQN maybe? One of those black covered trade PB with the heroine in a fancy (purple?) dress that were so popular at the time. Thanks, Bitchery!
Who knows this one?
Hidden Paradise
by
Janet Mullany
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I was wondering if it was Katie MacAlister’s The Corset Diaries, but that was published about a decade earlier and wasn’t a HQN, so maybe not?
Hidden Paradise by Janet Mullany. I was literally reading this last night!
I’m not familiar with the Mullany one, but other possibilities could be A Weekend with Mr Darcy by Victoria Connelly (which is part of a trilogy, I think), Definitely Not Mr Darcy by Karen Doornebos.
I also thought of The Austen Escape by Katherine Reay, but that is definitely closed door / not HQN and more recently published.
More importantly, I have dreamed of this as a vacation option but my sub-par Google fu has never led me anywhere. Is there such a thing as a Regency or Manor House vacation?
@Crysta, there’s this: https://www.onehundredmain.com/events/jane-austen-weekends/
Finally, one I’ve read! Hidden Paradise is correct. From the Amazon description: Louisa Connelly, a recently widowed Jane Austen scholar, needs some relief from her stifling world. When a friend calls to offer her a temporary escape from her Montana ranch, she is whisked into a dizzying world of sumptuous food, flowing wine…and endless temptation.
She’s an honored guest at Paradise Hall, an English resort boasting the full experience of an authentic Georgian country-house weekend. Liveried servants tend to every need of houseguests clad in meticulous period costume: snug breeches, low-cut silken gowns and negligible undergarments.
It’s Mac Salazar, a journalist immersing himself fully, deeply, lustily in the naughty pleasures of upstairs-downstairs dalliances, who piques Louisa’s curiosity—and libido—most. He’s a dilettante straight out of a novel: uninhibited, unapologetic and nearly insatiable. But Lou’s not romantic about this much, at least: Paradise Hall is a gorgeous fantasy, nothing more. A lover like Mac is pure fiction. And the real world beckons….
If anyone wants a Jane Austen-weekend modern romance I enjoyed Austenland starring Keri Russell.
I think I remember reading this book too. Is it maybe actually a reality show and the hero is the star and they all have to pretend they are regency for show purposes?