If you enjoy fairytale retellings, this historical romance series will enchant and delight you. The Awakened by a Kiss Series by Charis Michaels reimagines the side characters of fairytales and puts them as the main characters in Regency/Victorian England. The three books are very loosely connected: there is minimal interaction of characters from one book to the next plus one mysterious shop owner that pops up in all three books.
1. A Duchess a Day (2020)
This book was delightful and my favorite of the series. We start with the Snow White’s Huntsman being recruited from prison to keep guard over a duke’s flight-risk of a fiancee. (He was imprisoned for murdering the Snow White-equivalent of the story, but she really just ditched him.) When he meets his new charge, he finds her sunshine-y and addictive and the girl clearly has no interest in the duke at all. She manages to recruit the huntsman into her plan of throwing eligible ladies (seven in all) at the duke. Relatively low on the steam scale, but you can really feel the longing and pining between our two main characters.
Ebook borrowed from my local library via Libby.
2. When You Wish Upon a Duke (2021)
We meet a Tinkerbell-equivalent in this story who works at a travel agency and is recruited by a duke to rescue his cousin from pirates in Iceland. She’s had a bad history with Iceland along with a sour experience touring the continent with Peter and his merry band of lost boys, but she takes the duke up on his offer in exchange for a new storefront for her own travel agency. I don’t have much of a reference point for the allusions in this book, having never read or watched Peter Pan, but I still enjoyed the romance in this story.
Ebook borrowed from my local library via Libby.
3. A Duchess by Midnight (2022)
The stepsister of Princess Cindy has her chance to atone for her mean girl ways in this book, where she is now a mentor to young debutantes. Working with a reclusive duke’s nieces, she tries to teach them the rules of propriety. And when she gets caught in a compromising situation (oops), she has to uphold those rules and marry the duke. This book is the steamiest of the set, with the compromising happening within the first half of the book and a little action outdoors in the woods. *fans self*
Advance ebook provided by Avon Books via NetGalley. Print book provided by Avon Books.
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