A Perfect Match
Discussion of consent issues and discussion of minors dying
A Perfect Match starts out with so much promise but it fizzles out into an uninspiring finish. Unlike the preceding novella, the “kidnapping” in this one is relatively benign. Lord Heywood has traveled away from his military regiment in order to protect his friend Douglas’s sister Kitty from a dastardly villain. When he spots the villain Malet making plans to elope with Kitty at a ball, he takes desperate measures and “kidnaps” Kitty and her cousin Cass away to his family’s home. Because Heywood has communication skills and doesn’t kidnap innocent girls without telling them why, he explains the need to spirit Kitty away to safety and that he’s doing this with Douglas’s blessing (Douglas writes a letter and tells them to place trust in Heywood).
In the backstory, the villain Malet had sex with a fifteen year old girl (the book implies that it was consensual, but I don’t believe that fifteen year olds can give consent to men twice their age). When Malet ended their relationship, she wilted away in grief and refused to eat or drink, eventually dying. When Heywood and Douglas report Malet and have him kicked out of the regiment, Malet swears that he’ll take revenge by seducing their sisters. This is why Heywood is determined to keep the heroine Cass and her cousin Kitty away from Malet (even resorting to kidnapping).
Heywood doesn’t convey all this information to the women initially and just says that Malet was stripped of his commission for unbecoming conduct.
The women calm down, they travel to Heywood’s family to celebrate Christmas, and Heywood falls in love with Cass (the wrong woman as he thought to woo Kitty, the “writer” of witty letters to her brother). I’m sure experienced romance readers can guess who the real writer of the letters is.
I enjoyed this novella so much before they reached Heywood’s family. There’s delightful chemistry between the leads and I’m a sucker for the “mistaken epistolary” trope (MC thinks the wrong person wrote the letters through which they fell in love).
But once they reach the family estate and the cast of characters expands, the story weakens considerably. Heywood has so many siblings (they’re all dukes apparently? His mother is thrice widowed and only married dukes. It’s kinda amazing). His family took attention away from the couple and felt like an extended advertisement for the other books in the series. Novellas already have a hard time successfully developing the relationship in a short span, and I wanted more time with Heywood and Cass. Coupled with an eye roll-worthy black moment, the second half of A Perfect Match thoroughly disappointed me.
– Aarya
This winter, steal away with the reigning queens of Regency Romance… plus one or two dukes, one heiress, and one headstrong beauty—to a surprise snow storm, the comfort of a blazing fire, and the heat of a lover’s kisses…
A PERFECT MATCH by Sabrina Jeffries
Whisked away from a wintry ball by a commanding colonel, Cassandra Isles struggles with her feelings for Lord Heywood. For he is a man sworn to marry only for money—and Cass is an heiress who will accept nothing less than love.
Historical: European, Novella, Romance
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