Heather Moll's Regency romance follows Olivia Fitzroy through a Christmas house party where she must navigate her growing feelings for childhood friend Luke Kingsley while surrounded by eight other ladies competing for eligible bachelors. Moll writes in the tradition of Jane Austen, filling her prose with period detail: the social rituals of country house visits, the limited opportunities for private conversation, and the constant presence of family members whose observations must be managed. Olivia believes Luke sees her only as his friend's little sister, while Luke harbors his own secrets that prevent him from declaring himself. The novel develops their relationship through stolen moments--conversations by the fire, inadvertent touches, the charged atmosphere of Christmas festivities. Moll understands that Regency romance depends on constraint: the impossibility of frank discussion, the weight of propriety, and the small gestures that must carry enormous emotional freight. The Fitzroy family, with its twelve cousins and their various romantic entanglements, provides a warm extended-family setting that contrasts with the intensity of Olivia and Luke's private negotiation. The novel delivers the expected happily-ever-after while earning it through psychological insight into characters who must overcome internal obstacles as well as external circumstances. Part of a series that can be read independently.