Lily of Ludgate Hill

 

Lily of Ludgate Hill (Belles of London #3)-Mimi Matthews

Berkley

Release Date: January 16, 2024

Rate: 📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Lady Anne Deveril doesn’t spook easily. A woman of lofty social standing known for her glacial beauty and starchy opinions, she’s the unofficial leader of her small group of equestriennes. Since her mother’s devastating plunge into mourning six years ago, Anne voluntarily renounced any fanciful notions of love and marriage. And yet, when fate puts Anne back into the entirely too enticing path of Mr. Felix Hartford, she’s tempted to run…right into his arms.

No one understands why Lady Anne withdrew into the shadows of society, Hart least of all. The youthful torch he once held for her has long since cooled. Or so he keeps telling himself. But now Anne needs a favor to help a friend. Hart will play along with her little ruse—on the condition that Anne attend a holiday house party at his grandfather’s country estate. No more mourning clothes. No more barriers. Only the two of them, unrequited feelings at last laid bare.

Finally free to gallop out on her own, Anne makes the tantalizing discovery that beneath the roguish exterior of her not-so-white knight is a man with hidden depths, scorching passions—and a tender heart.

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Book 3 in Mimi Matthews' latest series finally gives us Lady Anne Deveril and Felix Hartford! They've sniped at each other in scenes throughout the last two books, so readers knew they had an unresolved past, and here things get resolved! This may be one of the best second-chance romances I've ever read: a lovers to enemies to lovers who never actually stopped loving each other and just wouldn't admit it (even to themselves) book. Think Jane Austen's Persuasion (one of my favorites) with major doses of "mistakes were made", "we were too young to be mature about things", and "prove it to me this time" going on here. 

Lily of Ludgate Hill has lots going on and keeps the hits coming to our characters. Some I won't mention for too many spoilers. But Anne is watching her friends marry and starting to wonder about her own life. She's chosen to withdraw from things like love and much of society in favor of caring for her mother, and while she isn't entirely sure how she could (especially in the past) have balanced the two any differently, she does regret that she couldn't have found a way. What's so great about Anne is that she doesn't care about what Society thinks of her to change who she is- especially when it comes to the people she loves. Early on Felix argues with her about how people see her as being in her mother's shadow, as being weak, how she doesn't seem like the girl he used to know. She tells him she doesn't care what people who don't know her think because they don't know about her life and she knows who she is. Anne may be willing to play within the confining rules of Society, and she and her friends may regret how those rules limit their actions, but she doesn't let them define her as a person. I absolutely love her!

I also love how we see Felix grow and understand Anne, and their past, and how to relate to her as an equal. As we uncover what happened between them and see both Felix and Anne work towards accepting the hurt they've done and the changes that have happened, Felix in particular has to change how he thinks about a lot of things. He comes to see that what he thought of as weaknesses can actually be strengths, and Matthews does a wonderful job of showing us this in multiple ways. But he gets there in the end because he figures out what's important to him.

The layers to the characters and the plot were beautifully and masterfully done, and I imagine I'll discover more nuances next time I read the book! You don't necessarily need to have read The Siren of Sussex or Belle of Belgrave Square to enjoy The Lily of Ludgate Hill, but you'll enjoy watching the characters develop throughout the series, and Belle and Lily do overlap a bit at the beginning. And this book has definitely planted the seeds for Stella's book for us to look forward to!