The Trouble With True Love is a historical romance that combines the ‘rake meets wallflower’ plot device with the ‘pretend dating’ plot device and the ‘advice columnist gets characters into trouble’ plot device. There’s nothing new here but it’s all quite delightful due to excellent characterization and use of language.

Clara is a newcomer to Society and is shy. All her life she’s been overshadowed by her older sister (they mutually adore each other – the overshadowing is unintentional). When the sister, Irene, leaves on a honeymoon, Clara is left to manage Irene’s newspaper until she returns. The Trouble with True Love is a sequel to The Truth about Love and Dukes, which tells Irene’s story. While Trouble With True Love was a fine standalone, I did keep wishing that I had read the first book, if only so I could know more about Irene and the paper.

Anyway, at the start of this book, Clara is managing the paper on her own and struggling to write the Lady Truelove advice column. As a shy woman with minimal romantic experience she has a terrible time coming up with advice. One day she overhears Lord Rex Galbraith, a mild rake of the “sleeps with willing widows and does some gambling” disposition, giving his friend some very detailed advice on how to break things off with a widow who wishes a dalliance to become a true courtship. Clara uses this conversation to write one of her columns. Alas, Rex figures out that Clara used the conversation for a column – and his friend took the advice, to disastrous effect, AND the friend thinks Rex must have given Lady Truelove the information. So Rex is justly annoyed with Clara who inadvertently made his life very difficult.

After some banter and exchanges of blackmail threats, Clara and Rex reach an agreement. He will take over the Lady Truelove column since Clara needs help, and Clara will pay him a large sum for it since Rex needs money. Rex also needs to get back into the good graces of his father and his aunt, both of whom want him to think about marriage, so Clara will allow him to pretend to court her. This will benefit Clara by drawing the notice of other eligible men, who, in theory, will swoop in to console her when she and Rex break things off. The courtship is pretend and not real because Clara wants very much to marry and have children, whereas Rex does not believe in true love and wants to avoid marriage for as long as possible.

This book works because Rex and Clara are both immensely likeable characters who have great sexual chemistry as well as a delightful friendship. Clara is the only person who can’t be charmed into submission by Rex. Rex is the only person who notices how beautiful Clara is (at first). From the start, they respect each other’s intelligence. Paradoxically, they are both demanding of each other and gentle with each other – each expects the best from the other and believes they can deliver, whether that be a good dance, a good column, or a willingness to face fears. At the same time, they are thoughtful regarding each other’s feelings and backgrounds.

I loved Lady Truelove’s columns, but sadly we only get two. I also loved the passages in which Clara works on the paper. Initially she lacks the confidence to make any changes because it’s her sister’s paper. However, as she becomes more confident, and realizes that her sister will be gone for months, she’s able to take action. It’s deeply satisfying. The changes she makes involve solidarity with other female employees of the paper. The theme of solidarity comes into play in several different ways throughout the book and as you can imagine I ate that up with a spoon.

The only part of this book that I didn’t like was that eventually Rex does something that seems incredibly out of character. He blames it on destiny which is possibly the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. It leads to a scene which is sexy but should not exist. Because I didn’t believe this scene would have happened, I didn’t enjoy the conflict and ensuing resolution as much as I otherwise would have.

This is an unassuming romance that doesn’t get too angsty and uses well-worn but much loved tropes to excellent, though not surprising effect. The use of language, the dialogue, and the well-rounded characters who have great chemistry together make it special. Even minor characters pop off the page: Rex’s fickle mother, Clara’s irritating newspaper editor, and Clara’s sister all seem like real people who have real interactions with each other. I would consider this to be a almost perfect (but not quite, hence the B grade) comfort read. Good food, good clothes, lovely settings, lovely characters, lots and lots of feminism – that’s my jam!