Box of Chocolates: Unusual Historicals for February 2023

Ever notice how nobody ever seems to say anything good about the month of February? In wide swaths of the US it's cold and dark, quite frankly it's depressing.  Yes, it's mercifully short and you get half-price candy on February 15th, but really that's about it. But at least in February 2023 we're also getting a fairly robust month of unusual historicals.  It's like authors and publishers knew none of us really want to leave our homes this month if we can help it.  Here's what is catching my eye:

Beguiling Her Enemy Warrior by Lucy Morris 

Kidnapped by the warrior 

Tempted by the man… 

Captured by the infamous Lord Rhys, a Welsh prince intent on revenge against her family, Viking healer Helga must keep her wits about her if she’s to be freed. Easier said than done when she desires him rather than fears him! Helga senses there’s good inside Rhys and feels compelled to reach his heart. But first, she must make him see there’s more to her than just his enemy…

Here's my #1 with a bullet this month, the third book in what has been the author's thus far enjoyable Viking Shieldmaiden Sisters trilogy. Last we saw Helga she was getting kidnapped because her brother-in-law arranged for the Welsh princess he was supposed to marry to mercifully escape with her one true love. The fly in the ointment? The princess's brother who kidnaps Helga in a fit of retribution.  Helga's kidnapping is featured prominently in the second book, so I'm more than ready to see how that all spins out and how the enemies-to-lovers (boy howdy!) romance is handled.

Artfully Yours by Joanna Lowell

Nina Finch isn't suited for a life of crime. Raised by her art-forger brother, she can paint like Botticelli. But she'd so much rather be baking gooseberry tarts. She finally has the money she needs to open her own bakery. Unfortunately, her brother's carelessness lands her—and their forgeries—directly under the nose of London's most discerning art critic, Alan De'Ath. De'Ath knows the paintings are fake. He doesn't know that Nina had a hand in their creation. In fact, he offers her a job in his household. Accepting it is the most dangerous thing she has ever done.... 

Alan takes pride in seeing things other people miss. He plans to catch the forger and cement his reputation. There's only one problem: the closer he gets to the beguiling woman he hired, the less he trusts his perspective. Nina isn't what she seems. But despite their false start, she just might hold the real key to his heart. 

As Nina and Alan’s attraction grows, divided loyalties threaten to pull them apart and shatter their worlds. They’ll lose everything, or discover how powerful true love can be.... 

I'm old, cranky and have many thoughts and feelings about trade paperback historical romances with cartoon covers - but this one sounds fun.  First off, it's a Victorian (I love me some Victorians) with an art forger heroine trying to go straight and a hero determined to apprehend the forger to further his own reputation and garner prestige.  It sounds right up my alley, but a new-to-me author + higher price point = Wendy leveraging her library card to give this one a spin. 

Marriage Deal with the Earl by Liz Tyner 

A deal they both agreed to 

An attraction they never expected… 

Widowed Susanna isn’t looking to remarry, but her late husband’s debts mean she’s open to an old friend’s proposition… Last time she saw Quinton Langford, he was content being a physician, but after unexpectedly becoming an earl, he needs a wife to navigate Society. When Susanna agrees to his proposal of a marriage on paper, she never expects long buried feelings to resurface and threaten to derail their agreement! 

My love for Harlequin Historical is well documented, so it's a little surprising that I have yet to read anything by Tyner.  This one sounds like just my sort of a catnip - a physician hero who is out of his depth when he unexpectedly inherits a title and a widowed heroine left behind to clean up a dead husband's financial mess = friends-to-lovers meets marriage of convenience.

The Wolf and the Wildflower by Stacy Reid

London is buzzing with the news that James Winters, the Duke of Wulverton—thought lost at sea a decade ago—survived in the harsh wilderness of the Yukon. Now he’s been returned to his family, his responsibilities, and a nightmarish world of artifice and noise. He has three weeks to become a refined, elegant duke for the Queen…or doom the entire family to ruin and scandal. 

Promising psychologist Jules Southby knows a lot about disguises. She’s secretly been living as a boy since birth, enjoying the freedoms of men and knowing little about how to behave like a woman. When she meets the alluring duke, she’s unprepared for his raw, masculine beauty and icy intelligence…or that he can see through her darkest secret. 

Jules has very little time to transform the duke into a true semblance of an English gentleman. Yet his very presence seems to unravel her in every way. Their attraction is stark and achingly real—and forbidden. But loving the lost duke would mean losing every sacrifice she’s made to earn her freedom…

I have a feeling that this is a book where there will be no half measures. I'm either going to fall on it like a chocolate cake or else it's going to be a hot mess.  But I saw "lost at sea a decade ago" and "Yukon" and I am but a mere mortal.  Reid has been quite prolific but I have yet to try any of her books, and this one sounds deliciously banana-pants. 

A Season of Flirtation by Julia Justiss

Her lessons in flirtation… 

Could work too well! 

When Lady Laura Pomeroy offers to give her friend lessons on surviving the Season, she doesn’t expect her friend’s brother to join! Banker Miles Rochdale is dubious of the aristocracy and clearly thinks Laura is shallow and silly. Frustratingly, mathematical genius Laura finds herself attracted to him and enjoys challenging his assumptions. But, as a marquess’s daughter, there’s no point impressing Miles because she’ll never be allowed to marry someone in the trade… 

A cross-class romance featuring a heroine whose intelligence is likely viewed as a detriment within the ton, and a banker hero who is distrustful of all things aristocracy.  What could possibly go wrong?  Justiss is a solid writer and this is the first book in her new Least Likely to Wed series.

The Witching Hour by Anna Bradley - Kindle Unlimited, Novella

A haunted soul, a broken heart, and an ancient castle that takes care of its own… 

In a mysterious castle in Oxfordshire, in a bedchamber above stairs lays Sylvie Bentham, the Countess of Trevelyan, deceased of a fever at the tender age of twenty-three. 

Or is she? 

Sylvie doesn’t feel dead. To be fair, she doesn’t feel alive either—not until James, the husband she thought lost to her forever appears at her bedside and begs her to come back to him. James makes the frozen blood rush through her veins and her lifeless heart beat wildly in her chest, but he’s made her promises before, promises he didn’t keep. How can she trust his promise of forever? 

James always thought he’d return to Sylvie someday, but he’s waited too long, and now she’s gone forever. 

Or is she? 

Dead countesses don’t wander the corridors of the castle, or play the pianoforte in the music room at midnight. Dead countesses don’t stroke his hair, or hold his hand, or drop tender kisses on his lips. A shadow of Sylvie’s soul yet lingers inside her body, but will his love be enough to lure her back from the brink of death? 

Yes, the blurb caught my eye.  Unfortunately I'm not finding a lot of detail beyond said blurb.  Is the heroine a ghost? Is she alive? Whatever is going on here it definitely sounds Gothic.  It's also short (Amazon lists this at 60 pages) so I think this might be my last KU read before I let my subscription lapse at the end of the month. 

At the King's Command by Susan Wiggs - Reprint

Frustrated by his own failures at matrimony, King Henry VIII punishes an insolent nobleman by commanding him to marry the vagabond woman caught stealing his horse. Stephen de Lacey is a cold and bitter widower, long accustomed to the sovereign's capricious and malicious whims. He regards his new bride as utterly inconvenient…though undeniably fetching. 

But Juliana Romanov is no ordinary thief—she is a Russian princess forced into hiding by the traitorous cabal who slaughtered her family. One day she hopes to return to Muscovy to seek vengeance. 

What begins as a mockery of a marriage ultimately blossoms into deepest love.

This book under this title was first published in 2009, but even back then it was a reprint.  Prior to moving into contemporary women's fiction, Wiggs wrote a bunch of historical romances and this story first appeared as Circle in the Water back in 1994.  It's also the first book in the Tudor Rose trilogy and yes, I have all of the original editions buried in my print TBR (like really, you have to ask?).  Anyway, I've never been able to ferret out if the reprint was revised at all beyond the new title, but comparing the pagination between my print copy of Circle in the Water and what's listed on Amazon for At the King's Command they are within spitting distance - so I'm taking that as a good sign.  Will 2023 finally be the year I read through more of Wiggs' historical backlist?  Sigh. Hope springs eternal.

What Unusual Historicals are you looking forward to reading?