The crossdressing genderqueerish rake hero with painful secrets and an army of dandies and the awkward butchish heroine with painful secrets and occasional bouts of crossdressing find emo, love together. Utter catnip. It's emotional hurt/comfort cranked to eleven; the final "battle" is between two women who respect each other and recognize that they would probably be friends under other circumstances; the heroine
gets the action words during sex scenes; did I mention the army of dandies? This has all the external trappings of historical romance novels I enjoy, but it's the squishy non-romance-typical gender dynamics in the center that make me want to clutch this (e)book to my heaving bosom while simultaneously shoving it at everyone I know who digs romance novels but not always their gender politics even a little.
