2014 book 305

Mary Balogh's The Proposal
I joked on Twitter recently that I was only going to read historical romances until new books start coming out again--but clearly it was only sort of a joke! I am burned out, man, and these books are easy and entertaining. In this series--the Survivor's Club series--there's a group of men and one woman who all survived hardships and horrors in war, and recovered together and bonded and now they get together once a year to hang out and basically be a therapy group (I mean that in a positive way). One of them, Hugo, is grousing about needing a wife for various reasons, when the others joke that he should just wander down to the beach and tell the first woman he meets that he's a rich war hero who was given a title for his service. And then when he DOES go down to the beach, he sees a pretty young widow sprain her ankle, and obviously has to help her before the tide comes in! But can a businessman make it work with a noblewoman? (Obviously yes.) I actually really loved the interplay between these two--lots of funny teasing--and how they were willing to share their grief with one another. The dialogue was awkward at times, but in general this was well-written, and forewent the fake-ish obstacles to romance. A-/B+.