Book Review: What a Lady Needs for Christmas (MacGregor Series) by Grace Burrowes

I really enjoyed this story with warm characters and a sweet building romance.
What a Lady Needs for Christmas (MacGregor Series)
by Grace Burrowes

• File Size: 1325 KB
• Print Length: 416 pages
• Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca (October 7, 2014)
• ASIN: B00L5QGB7O
• Genre: Historical Romance
• My Rating: 4.5 of 5.0

Book Description
Publication Date: October 7, 2014
The Best Gifts are the Unexpected Ones...
To escape a scandal, Lady Joan Flynn flees her family's estate in the Scottish Highlands. She needs a husband by Christmas, or the holidays will ring in nothing but ruin.
Practical, ambitious mill owner Dante Hartwell offers to marry Joan, because a wellborn wife is his best chance of gaining access to aristocratic investors.
As Christmas—and trouble—draw nearer, Dante and Joan's marriage of convenience blossoms into unexpected intimacy, for true love often hides beneath the most unassuming holiday wrapping...

Review:
Lady Joan returns from a night where she hoped to share her dress sketches with another fashion enthusiast. Instead she was slowly primed with drink so that she doesn’t fully remember what happen. But she thinks that she has been compromised and after a week or so she begins to fear she may be pregnant. She seeks to escape Edinburgh to spend Christmas in Scotland where family are to meet. She is having trouble getting a ticket for the train until Dante Hartwell and his young daughter step up and invite her to join them in their train cars.

Mr. Hartwell is “an unlikely” rescuer. He is a Scotsman and a man in trade as the owner of several mills. He is a widower with two children, Charlie the exuberant child and Phillip the serious plodder. Dante’s sister, Margaret, is along to help and her presence makes it possible for Lady Joan to join their group. Dante had been in town looking to find a wife but felt out of place, not knowing the right protocols of the aristocracy.

Lady Joan longs for more than being a sedentary English aristocrat lady. She loves fabrics and designing and would truly love to work in fashion if only that were permitted and... provided she can deal with a child. Dante is a man in trade who wants an introduction to English aristocrats who might invest in his mills. He also needs a wife for his high spirited children. These might not seem like a likely pair but bit by bit they realize they like each other’s qualities. They decide to marry as a means of fulfilling each other’s needs. But they both hope for more and are excited to discover that love can grow, especially if they stop and communicate with each other.

I enjoyed the diverse views of the main characters and distinct personalities of the lively children. I also loved the descriptions that are rich with textures of touch and color. Grace Burrowes has an amazing ability to develop rich characters and build a warm, charmingly natural story around them. The sexual scenes are beautifully done to be an exploration of newlyweds, one totally innocent and naive and the other seeking to be gentle while finding a way to share passion.

I thoroughly enjoyed this delightful story and recommend this, and Grace Burrowes, to all those readers who love Historical, Victorian Romance.

I received this from Sourcebooks through NetGalley for an honest review.