The Lady Meets Her Match by Gina Conkle

The Basics:
The Lady Meets Her Match by Gina Conkle
Sourcebooks Casablanca
Book Two in the Midnight Meetings series
Historical Romance
Published April 7, 2015
Source: Received via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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Why I picked up this book:

I did a week of Cinderella adaptations earlier in the year and I couldn't resist this one!



Blurb:

Locating Her Is Only Half The Battle...

Cyrus Ryland didn't become England's wealthiest bachelor by being a pushover, but the mysterious beauty he discovers sneaking around at his grand ball enflames his curiosity. When the clock chimes midnight, and she's nowhere to be found, Cyrus vows to scour all of London to uncover who she is. Little does he know that not only does Claire Mayhew not want to be found, but she wants nothing to do with him at all...

My Thoughts:

I adored The Lady Meets Her Match! Absolutely adored it. 

The book starts with Claire breaking into Cyrus' home so she can secure her right to rent one of his properties. She's determined to make a start as a business owner - operating a coffee shop/bakery. He's equally sure that a woman shouldn't be a business owner. 

What I loved about this book is that Claire and Cyrus have the time to really fall for each other after their initial flirtation and recognition of chemistry. Their relationship evolves instead of simply bursting into existence. There's an actual courting phase!

I also really liked that there are some period-appropriate problems facing Claire and Cyrus. One is his attitude towards women versus Claire's determination to be independent. Another is the question of how prepared she is to handle all the facets of operating a business - how much does her employment history make up for a lack of education? Lots of good material here, and while I wish the book had more explicitly talked about Claire's lack of opportunity to learn how to run a business short of on-the-job training.

I was cheering for these two through the whole book. I fell in love with them while they were falling in love with each other. Absolutely a great and charming romance.

Now, were the period details necessarily spot on? I don't know - much has been made in other reviews about this. Honestly, I just didn't care. I was willing to roll with it because I found the story so entertaining.

I want to add that I didn't realize until I was putting the tags on this post that I reviewed the first book in the series - Meet the Earl at Midnight - last year, and I really loved it too. So, you know, go check this series out, folks!

Bottom line:

The Lady Meets Her Match is a very entertaining, very sweet and romantic historical romance that I absolutely enjoyed. Gotta recommend this one!

4.5 stars
For fans of historical romance, Cinderella adaptations, middle-class romances

But don't just take my word for it! I grabbed a few links to other blog reviews of The Lady Meets Her Match:

Manic Readers 

Pink Indle

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