Eden, Sarah M. The Lady and the Highwayman. Salt Lake City: Shadow Mountain, 2019.
Paperback | $15.99 USD | ISBN-13: 978-1629726052 | 344 pages | Victorian Romance
5 stars
I have long been interested in reading Sarah M. Eden, but the premise of the The Lady and the Highwayman, along with a recommendation from a friend, was the one that finally caught my interest in a serious way. And given my recent interest in the Victorian Gothic literary characters, this seemed like a perfect follow-up to some of my other recent reads.
And it truly is a delightful romance, building from Fletcher and Elizabeth being somewhat rivals in the penny dreadful business to them falling for each other in a beautiful way, while also exploring how each of them, despite their different class backgrounds, has a common goal in helping the less fortunate.
I love how their narrative is juxtaposed against the installments of their respective penny dreadful stories, and how they each reveal something about the writer’s character and thoughts. Fletcher’s story is very much motivated by his past as a street urchin, while we get insights into Elizabeth’s head about how her growing feelings for Fletcher interfere with her writing.
This is a delightful and fun historical, peppered with insights into the world of publishing both silver-fork novels and Penny dreadfuls in Victorian England. I would recommend this to love sweet historical romances.