Short book (75 NOOK pages), which is why I rated it 3.5 stars rather than 4. I like that this Regency era book took place somewhere other than London and had an interracial working class/middle class couple. Elijah was a pretty good hero but could have used a touch more development during the story, maybe a little more on his family. Rose has a good heroine with a little more back story to connect reader to her. Honestly, this was a good story, just the timeline was too rushed to enjoy. There was also a lot of "reckons" for a book not set in the American South or West, which kept throwing me out of the Peninsular War and into the American Civil War. 3.5 stars.
Edited to add: I do have other books by the author and look forward to reading more from her. Also, here a selection of books she mentioned in her author's note about race and the Regency era:
Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves, and the American Revolution by Simon Schama
Colour, Class, and the Victorians by Douglas A. Lorimer
Reconstructing the Black Past: Blacks in Britain 1780-1830 by Norma Myers
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