My Lady's Choosing by Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris

The romance novel that lets you pick your path, follow your heart, and find happily ever after You are the plucky but penniless heroine in the center of eighteenth-century society, courtship season has begun, and your future is at hand. Will you flip forward fetchingly to find love with the bantering baronet Sir Benedict Granville? Or turn the page to true love with the hardworking, horse-loving highlander Captain Angus McTaggart? Or perhaps race through the chapters chasing a good (and arousing) man gone mad, bad, and scandalous to know, Lord Garraway Craven? Or read on recklessly and take to the continent as the “traveling companion” of the spirited and adventuresome Lady Evangeline? Or yet some other intriguing fate? Unexpected and multiple intertwining storylines make this novel a daring delight to read again and again, with beguiling illustrations bringing all the lust and love to life.

Cheeky fun
I read this in the proper way (lots of bookmarks). The euphemisms matched each plotline setting and were suitably goofy: rubbing the genie lamp, polishing moonstones, and even a page devoted to postman related. There were mysteries driving each plot and even with the number of decisions to cover, there were still surprises.

The “Choose You Own Adventure” style is fun and unique in a romance novel. A light and fluffy sort of read if you have a love/hate relationship with romance novels, as it playfully mocks the genre and reader.

ReRead November 2022

Well, I reread one full path and started a second but got distracted and... Yeah. Fun and cheesy and corny and everything that we poke good-natured fun at in historical romances.

Original Review

There's four main paths to this book, the main story that diverges into two, then each one diverges again, a little later on. That makes it feel a bit like there's two main romances and then two ‘bonus' ones - but none of them feel tacked on in the least.

I definitely liked two of the stories much more than the other two, which, not in the slightest bit coincidentally, were the first two I read. Each story deals with a typical historical romance type character and, because I know myself so well, I figured which ones I'd like the most.

My first one was the Mr. Darcy-esque man that constantly banters with ‘you.' The second was the widowed Lady Adventurer, who is usually relegated to the best friend or a cautionary tale and here was a love interest. (Those two were my favorites and I'd be hard pressed to choose which one I liked more.)

The third one was a you're typical Scottish gentleman - who was actually nicer than they usually are. (Forgettable, I thought.) The fourth and final one is the ‘mysterious' lord of the windswept (and haunted) manor. (This one was without a doubt my least favorite, possibly because there were some pretty heavy rape undertones to it. Like usual. Which was especially jarring after my readthrough of the Scotsman had no sex.)

Anyway, the stories were mostly fun, and there's probably something here for everyone. The only thing I'd have liked was more choices. I know there were quite a few, but...I just would have liked more. (That didn't cause me to drop my rating though, because I know these things are already super long.) Also, some of the choices definitely feel like ‘right' and ‘wrong' choices. Would have preferred less of that.

Fun, adult CYOA that I hope starts a trend because I do love these things.