Can she give her heart to a man who may want her to give up that other important part of her heart? The lovely resolution of this dilemma at the story's end will please any romance reader. That's the main conflict of this romance.

How could Leonie give that up? It would be like giving up some part of her heart.' She'd made them into a family and taught them to have a real life. 'It hurt, physically, to think of abandoning it. But Leonie can't even consider that possibility. Her sisters' husbands would prefer that the three sisters, including Leonie, leave the business and devote themselves to life in the peerage. Numbers and neat columns, credits and debits, weighing pros and cons of everything, that's Leonie's life.īut it's a lonely life now that Marcelline and Sophy are married and much less involved in their dressmaking business. She's the businesswoman/number-cruncher of the dressmaking business, Marcelline being the creative genius and Sophy the marketer/promoter. Leonie is the third Noirot dressmaking sister to find her true love, after Marcelline in Silk Is For Seduction (Avon Historical Romance) and Sophy in Scandal Wears Satin (Avon Historical Romance). But if I compare this to most other HRs I've read lately, it may deserve 6 stars. I gave it 5 stars because it deserves more than 4, although it didn't give me that extra thrill that Chase's classic Lord of Scoundrels did long ago.

This is not, however, a 5-star book for me. It's also a book with a lovely hero, not the usual jerk I've been finding lately in HRs.

(4.5 stars) This is a real romance and it's HR writing par excellence.

Vixen in Velvet by Loretta Chase