Marian Hayes, Duchess of Clare, has been quite busy. She's shot (and hopefully killed) her horrible husband, and successfully kidnapped the man who's been blackmailing her through a truly delightful exchange of correspondence, threatening to reveal her husband's true heir. Except Rob, the aforementioned blackmailer, has sort of... escaped his bonds, and now he's accompanying her to visit her sick father and securing horses and rescuing kittens, and so what if there's only one bed at the inn and then they get snowed in at her father's and - oh god. She's fallen in love with him. Doesn't that complicate things.

I loved The Queer Principles of Kit Webb and I honestly believe I manifested this book, which I love even more. It is perfect from start to finish. We begin with a fantastic epistolary sequence, and it just keeps rolling from there. There's a real kitchen sink of tropes here: blackmail, antagonists to lovers, a golden retriever hero, she's grumpy/he's sunshine, road trip, only one bed, snowed in, and somehow Sebastian makes all of it absolutely sing and manages to work in a lot of great thinking about mutual aid and dismantling the kyriarchy. It is tender and thoughtful and queer and laugh out loud funny and very socialist and I fucking loved it.

Thank you Avon and NetGalley for the ARC!