Title: A Lady to Treasure
Author: Marianne Ratcliffe
Publication Date: Oct 15, 2023
Genres: Romance
Protagonist Gender: Female
Sapphic Regency romance is fast becoming a favorite genre of mine. There's something about the setting, the costumes, the mannerisms, the social expectations, and the simplicity of life that I find comforting, and I've always been fascinated by history, so I love it when authors use the romance to more deeply explore a particular aspect.
In A Lady to Treasure, Marianne Ratcliffe delves into the worlds of business and finance, exploring how family obligations can place such weight on both personal freedom and professional responsibility. In an era where women were largely prized as marriageable commodities, Louisa and Sarah are both young women reaching far above what politely society feels should be their station. Louisa has been sent off by her father to find an eligible suitor, one with money and connections to rescue the family business, with no consideration given to the fact that she's better suited to manage than her father. Sarah, meanwhile, is doing her best to avoid the question of marriage as she single-handedly cares for an entire family estate, trying to preserve it against the spending of her stepmother and gambling debts of her stepbrother.
Both young women are headstrong, independent, and determined, and that creates friction between them from the start. They chafe at one another, rub each other the wrong way, but there's a deep personal respect there - albeit one mixed with professional disapproval. The romance here is slow-burn in every sense, a relationship that must first develop into an awkward friendship before being challenged and thwarted time and time again by . . . well, the ugliness of men. Theirs is neither an easy life nor an easy journey, and you'll need to be patient to see the romance we sense eventually realized.
Along the way, though, there is a wonderful intersection of family drama and gender roles, one you'll find yourself emotionally involved in very quickly. There's a lot of anger and frustration to the story, an underlying sense of unfairness that left me feeling very protective of Louisa and Sarah, but there are some lovely secondary characters in their families who do provide ample moments of warmth and love.
A Lady to Treasure was more slowly paced (and a tad longer) than I expected, and the emphasis feels more like a work of historical fiction featuring a queer romance than a story that is a predominantly historical romance, but it's captivating, well-written, and emotionally engaging. Worth the read.
Rating: ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀
My sincere thanks to the author for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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