The first of my Christmas reads and it was charming.  I found myself smiling much of the way through the story, even when I wanted to pinch the hero, the so very bound-by-duty Andrew Blackshear, who is the eldest of the family and so very, very, very proper.  *LOL*

Our heroine, Lucy Sharp was born to get under Andrew's skin and drive him to total distraction.  And that's exactly what she does with her impulsive and adventurous ways.  Propriety?  Not something she adheres to for the most part.  Brought up by an unconventional widower after the way-too-early death of her mother.

It was cute, it was heart-warming, it was filled with love and surprises.  I'm not fond of the cover (it's just too modern-looking for me), but the novella is a very pleasing read for the holiday season.  Check it out!

I'm finally finished and just a wee bit sad.  A Woman Entangled is the third book in the Blackshear Family series and also the weakest book in the series.  I'm not exactly sure what it was that I didn't enjoy, the writing was as wonderful as the other two books but I guess I'm just not a fan of the "friends to lovers" trope. Or maybe it was just this case of friends to lovers.  

Nick, our hero, has his feelings figured out pretty early but by the time Kate, our heroine, figures hers out the story was almost at an end and then poof--they couldn't but did and yada yada it was over and they were a couple.  

I think I was a little hard on this one at first.

I've read all of Cecilia Grant's three books. So far they've all started slow and sometimes her writing style, while beautiful, takes a bit of getting used to. In her first two books, the characters made the slow start less noticeable. Both of those books were stories of complete opposites. The leads were so different at first glance. So there were chapters full of back and forth, arguments, saying/doing the wrong thing, apologies that went awry, etc. And to be perfectly honest, there was more sex in those books. What can I say? I like when there's at least a few good sex scenes in my romance novels. And Cecilia Grant writes good ones, so the more the merrier.

This book on the other hand is a friends to lovers story. These are two people whose relationship is less fiery at first glance because they're so comfortable with each other. So at first they kind of bored me. I found Kate silly and Nick too stodgy. But as the story went on, and that comfort slipped away as romantic feelings got in the way, things got much more interesting. To paraphrase the slogan from "The Real World," they stopped being polite and started getting real.

That reminds me of another thing that makes this different from Ms. Grant's other books. They are all historicals, but the others occurred on the fringes of polite society. This one takes place right in the thick of it since both main characters are jockeying for increased social standing. At first I didn't like this, but as the book went on and this part of the story was revealed to be more layered than I originally thought, I didn't mind it.

To wrap things up, even though I didn't like this book as much as Ms. Grant's other offerings, in the end it was a very satisfying read. I found myself not only invested in Kate and Nick as a couple, but them as individuals as well. They both did a lot of growing up and made a lot of tough decisions. I found myself cheering them on by the end.

Finally, this is the third book in a series. I don't think you would have to read the first two books to get this one (although you should) even though the events of both those books heavily influence this one.

After reading willaful's excellent review of this book, all I can say is - I completely agree with her assessment. The 2 main characters are not very likeable at the beginning of the story, but Cecilia Grant makes them so believable as they struggle with themselves to finally do the right thing, which in this case is to be true to themselves. Wonderful character-driven story.

Some words about the love scenes - there are only two, both well-written, but the second one is extremely hot and goes into territory where few authors of Regency-set romance, at least of the ones I've read, dare to go, especially where one of the lovers is completely without sexual experience or knowledge. Some reviewers have commented that they didn't find this scene believable in view of the heroine's inexperience, but it worked for me.

I wonder which secondary characters will get their own story? Kate the heroine has a trio of sisters, and Viola, the self-assured (because she's so certain she's right) proto-feminist intellectual seems the most intriguing possibility.