His Wicked Smile

Gawain Redcake is a damaged man with lofty goals. His service to his county left him with various and painful scars, but his dearest dream is to become a peer of the realm. To do so he must marry well, but his heart and his aching body have a different plan. He meets Ann Haldene at the inn she runs while he is on a wild goose chase after women he thinks he should be wooing. Ann is of Indian descent and was taught Hindu medicine by her maharaja mother. Ann sooths Gawain's body and his soul, but their happily ever after is a long way off, and both must learn how to navigate 1890s London as an interracial couple. This fast-paced read is both sweet and fun. It's rare to find historical romances that feature couples who are of anything but Anglo-Saxon decent, and this one does a solid job of addressing some of these difficulties. At its heart, though, this is a standard romance and not a hard-hitting literary novel on the class and racial system of historical London—and that is just fine.