Elena Likes Books

4.5 stars. This is what Regency romance should be. It doesn't do anything particularly exciting or new with the genre, but what it does is traditional historical romance extremely, extremely well. My favorite bit was that the hero and heroine actually genuinely liked one another. When thinking about each other, they were all, "S/he is so smart and talented and funny! Oh, and also gorgeous," instead of the more typical, "God, s/he is so annoying, but so hot! I guess I have no choice but to furiously make out with him/her until we fall in love!"Also, Mackenzie, Putney's hero, avoids what I have come to think of as the Amanda Quick/Jayne Ann Krentz trap of making her heroes sickeningly overprotective. There was one particular scene that went roughly like this:Mackenzie: But you are a lady! You can't help us spy! It's too dangerous! What if you were hurt?Kiri: Uh, in case you didn't notice, I just pretty much single-handedly stopped like five bad guys from kidnapping a girl using my awesome martial arts skills. Also, I am really good at disguise, and you need me to identify the bad guys who got away using my superpowered nose.Mackenzie: Oh, right. My bad. Sorry. Welcome aboard!