This RITA® Reader Challenge 2015 review was written by Kera Bale. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Short Contemporary Romance category.

Here is Kera Bale's review:

After I finished this novella, I had a hard time deciding whether or not I liked the ending. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it wasn’t so much the ending itself that bothered me (I had been really invested in this couple getting their HEA, after all) but rather the choice the heroine had to make in order to facilitate said HEA.

Since it is impossible to describe this without revealing major spoilers, let’s start at the beginning.

“The Headmaster” is a nod to Gothic mysteries, and Tiffany Reisz packs a lot into 125 pages. Aside from the romance arc, there are two separate mysteries that need to be solved, and the author effortlessly weaves her story around themes of tolerance and acceptance, loyalty and friendship. Reisz` breezy style works really well here. With the exception of the romance, which does feel rushed in the last few chapters, the plot never feels overcrowded and unfolds smoothly, and once I started reading, I could not put this story down, even though I had other things to do that evening. Instead, the pace of the story and its engaging characters kept me glued to my Kindle.

Gwen is a twenty-five year old teacher, who is currently out of a job, an apartment and a boyfriend. Upon her arrival at Marshall’s Academy, she feels an immediate affinity for the secluded boarding school, it’s students and the school’s enigmatic headmaster Edwin Yorke. Edwin is handsome, has an English accent and is all buttoned-up with his insistence on decorum and proper manners. (Having tea with a lady in private is to him what third base is to the rest of us.)

This set-up pushes not only all of my catnip buttons, but Gwen’s as well, and she jumps at the chance to stay one week as a trial period that might lead to her becoming the school’s new live-in literature teacher.

Edwin does run a bit hot and cold, which is usually something for which I have very little patience, but what saves it for me here is Gwen’s reaction to his behavior. She is level-headed, has a solid backbone, and is constantly aware of her own responses not only to Edwin, but also everyone else she meets. She also clearly communicates what she wants, which is really refreshing and made me like her right off the bat.

In spite of some professional reservations, she chooses to act on her attraction towards Edwin early on, and watching her break through his reserve was a joy to read. One of the quibbles I have with this novella is that Edwin lost much of that reserve the minute they had sex, which was a shame, as it was the cause for some truly wonderful banter between them. Such as when Edwin shows up on her doorstep one evening, and Gwen teases him mercilessly about his old-fashioned notions of propriety. This conversation is utterly charming and hilarious and reveals Edwin’s self-deprecating sense of humor. This conversation and the “business dinner” later on (the kiss here may have made me swoon a little) are easily the novella’s best scenes, and I was a little disappointed that there weren’t more of them.

Instead, we get several sex scenes which are a bit of a mixed bag. The first two are very steamy and benefit from being character driven. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about the subsequent ones, as they failed to engage me almost completely. The language seemed increasingly repetitive, and the scenes themselves almost perfunctory at times.

I really loved the underlying themes of being true to yourself and embracing love and happiness no matter what form they take, or what other people think of you. However, there is a scene towards the end, in which a character monologues about past regrets, which gets really preachy and scratched the line towards melodrama. Another problem is that this novella would have benefited from another once over by a copy editor. There were a few too many missing words/word order errors that jumped out at me to ignore.

Tiffany Reisz is a new-to-me author, and I really enjoyed this novella of hers a lot. I will definitely check out her other work. The story is delightfully atmospheric, sports an engaging heroine and a wonderful hero. I would have given this a B+, had it not been for the choice given to Gwen at the end.