3.5 I've always loved Long's voice and her light, witty romances story arcs, but after reading 9 books in the Pennyroyal series, they're starting to feel all rather similar. Was tempted to downgrade this one to a 3 from my usual four because of it, but by the end she'd pushed me to a 3.5, she's just so good at what she does.

In this installment, both hero and heroine have angsty backgrounds, which justify their less-than-admirable behaviors (the hero's a womanizer, the heroine a beautiful flirt who basks in male attention, no matter if the male in question is married/engaged to another). But Long doesn't explore said backgrounds in much depth, only refers to them in passing; we don't get to FEEL Tansy's grief for her recently deceased parents and brother, nor Ian's distress over his war experiences. This is deliberate; it keeps the tone light and humorous, and the plot moving at a rapid clip. It's what many readers enjoy about Long's books, I'd surmise. Guess I just prefer an author who can give me something new every time, rather than giving me the same thing in slightly different packaging, no matter how delicious that same one thing is...

Another Goodreads reviewer noted the throwaway line Tansy gives about Americans being good with guns because of having to shoot so many bears and Indians, a line that equates killing humans with killing animals. Was Tansy being ironic here? Or are we supposed to find this funny? If we're supposed to take her at her word, the comment is definitely racist. A fairly common attitude toward Native Americans in that time period, no doubt, but something that really could have been easily avoided.