Miss Thornfield's Daring Bargain
A Victorian Historical Romance
by Addy Du Lac
This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app
1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date Mar 20 2025 | Archive Date Mar 23 2025
Talking about this book? Use #MissThornfieldsDaringBargain #NetGalley. More hashtag tips!
Description
Caught between his family and convictions, can a daring miss change everything?
As the daughter of an old wealthy merchant family, Ada was looking forward to this London season with her friends, but all her plans grind to a halt when her beloved older brother, Richard goes missing. Basil Thompson is the only thing standing between herself, what remains of her family and a life of isolated humiliation. Surrounded by enemies and with her list of allies growing thinner by the day, she strikes a daring bargain with him. They will marry long enough to find and secure her brother, then Basil can seek an annulment and leave her behind.
Basil is a man on a mission; come to London and meet his new fiancée. When he sees his friend Richard get kidnapped, the mission changes to saving him and protecting Richard’s sister Ada. But blood is thicker than water and keeping up with Ada Thornfield is a mission unto itself. Before he knows what is happening he has agreed to help her by way of an elopement, despite the fiancée his father has already arranged for him. Soon he finds himself caught between his convictions and the thwarted expectations of his family.
Between Gretna Green and London their feelings are changing faster than they can plan for or protect against. With every passing day their temporary arrangement threatens to give way to scandal, an all-consuming passion and a love that threatens to hold fast and disrupt the best laid plans, regardless of the consequences.
With scandal looming, and danger around every corner, these two must fight for their unexpected love and guard against the enemy without and within…with a little help from their friends.
Note: This series is part of Dragonblade's Flame line, so this is a scorching-hot read with open-door steam.
The Troublemakers Trilogy
Book 1 - Miss Thornfield's Daring Bargain
Book 2 - Miss Mason's Secret Baron
Book 3 - Miss Hawthorne's Unlikely Husband
Available Editions
| EDITION | Ebook |
| ISBN | 02192025MTDB1 |
| PRICE | $2.99 (USD) |
| PAGES | 256 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Reviewer 1179059
I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Miss Thornfield's Daring Bargain by Addy Du Lac is a third person multi-POV historical interracial romance. Ada and her older brother, Zhen-Yi, are wealthy merchants and members of Victorian society but are ostracized due to being half-Chinese. Zhen-Yi leaves Ada at a boarding school, she meets Regina and Elodia, two other biracial women in Victorian society (South Asian and Black, respectively) and becomes their friends. When Zhen-Yi is kidnapped and taken to a debtor’s prison so their uncle can take control of their estate, Ada enlists the help of Zhen-Yi’s friend, Basil, and convinces him to marry her so she can keep her brother’s assets.
One of the things I really appreciated is that racism and the biracial experience are not brushed aside in favor of the romantic Regency fantasy. We don’t get page time on where so much of that wealth comes from, but we do have discussions on orientalism and how East Asian young women would be viewed as obedient dolls or treated with disgust. Ada is cut off from her culture as she has never been to China and was raised away from her family, which adds another layer to her experience that the narrative directly acknowledges.
Basil doesn’t exoticize Ada and is shown to be sympathetic to her and brother’s experiences even if he is ignorant to some of it. He has some knowledge of Mandarin but does refer to Zhen-Yi as ‘Richard,’ which I assume Zhen-Yi asked him to do at some point. It’s nice to read an interracial romance where differences are acknowledged without fetishizing those differences and making it uncomfortable. Basil being friends with Zhen-Yi does help sell the fact that he has genuine affection for Ada.
Ada has a lot of anxiety and apologizes a lot to Basil in the early days of their marriage of convenience. She pushes the relationship half of the plot forward while Basil takes care of getting her brother out of prison. In many ways, I think Ada is a bold character because she does go after what she wants and takes risks, but she’s still held back by societal norms and not wanting to force herself on others.
Content warning for depictions of anti-Asian and anti-Black racism and sexism
I would recommend this to fans of Bridgerton looking for more explorations of racism and biracial characters and readers looking for an interracial Victorian romance
Readers who liked this book also liked:
