If you are looking for a wonderful book that will make you smile, cry, and laugh all while warming your heart and letting you fall in love with the most amazing main characters you’ll ever read, this is the book for you. In addition to the story itself, there is an outstanding prologue and epilogue that really starts and finishes the book perfectly. The author has a writing style and word choices that put you right in the scene. Your heart will pound and your breathing will increase as Duncan awakens to discover that he cannot feel his legs, then you’ll rejoice with him at each small step he makes toward his recovery – and throughout it all, your heart will swell when he thinks of ‘his Mary’. This book just resonated with me and I can’t wait to have the time to read it again.

Duncan Starrett and Lady Mary Mowbrah met and fell in love in 1790 when she was sixteen and he was twenty. Lady Mary is the daughter of a duke and Duncan is the youngest son of a retired army colonel. Sounds like a doomed romance doesn’t it? In a way, it is because her mother would never, ever approve a match between the two of them. Lady Mary doesn’t care, she is ready to run away to Gretna Green and marry Duncan anyway, but Duncan is a very honorable young man and wants to prove his worthiness to be her husband. Duncan’s solution is to buy a commission and serve in the army where he can earn rank and perform heroically. Little does he know what that choice will cost him.

Five years later, Duncan returns home a very broken man. Thinking Duncan isn’t long for this world, his parents send word to Lady Mary. Mary dashes to Duncan’s family home – which is adjacent to her family home – and is shocked by Duncan’s condition and the medical care he’s received. Mary refuses to think Duncan might die and does everything in her power to turn things around for him.

Duncan comes from a large, very loving family and Mary has always wanted that for herself. She’d never had any show of human affection in her life until she met Duncan. Her mother was cold, unfeeling and paid absolutely no attention to Mary – well, no good attention anyway. All Mary ever received was criticism and complaint. Oh! How she wanted the family Duncan had – all that love, caring and sharing with each other.

Duncan and Mary have a lot to overcome and their HEA is hard-won. Most of what they have to overcome is themselves and their feelings of inadequacy, but Duncan’s wounds are also a big obstacle. I absolutely fell in love with both Duncan and Mary and it was also wonderful to be able to have visits with Sebastian and Lizbeth (The Earl and The Enchantress), Drake (Mary’s brother) and Charlotte (The Duke and The Enchantress), and Lilith and Walter (The Baron and The Enchantress). Now, I can hardly wait for the next book in the series!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. ( )