The Phantom Lover by Elizabeth Manfield

So, I'm always looking for clean Regency Romances. What is it about this time period that so captures the imagination of the reader? There are TONS of Regency Romances out there, but very few clean ones. Which makes me laugh in a way because no self-respecting Regency heroine would let herself be ravished as portrayed in so many of these steamy novels. Of course, if we're going to talk about self-respect and its relationship to repeated illicit steamy sexual encounters....but we're not. So.

You know how in the back of a novel you've read--especially older novels--there are sometimes pages advertising other similar authors? That's where I found Elizabeth Mansfield. I ordered one of her books at random from a used book seller on Amazon so see if she was any good.

Of course, I've been very spoiled by Georgette Heyer, who made researching the Regency period a lifelong project. She had sources unique to her (journals and other documents from her own family history) and set the pattern (including dialogue, colloquialisms, clothing styles, etc) for all following Regency romances. No twentieth/twenty-first-century Regency romance author writes as well as she can or can achieve that feeling of "rightness" in the time period. Most fall far short, in fact. But Elizabeth Mansfield was not too bad.

The title implies a paranormal romance, but it's not. The story is of our heroine (who seemed like an overindulged brat at the beginning of the story) and a man who has been wounded in the war and how they come to know each other, change each other and eventually fall in love. Pretty standard romance stuff. Are there ever any "new" stories out there? I'm starting to think not, so it's a pleasure to find an old story entertainingly told, as this one is. I'll certainly read more Elizabeth Mansfield.

Sex: nope
Bad language: nope