What A Lady Requires, by Ashlyn MacNamara

Ashlyn MacNamara's What A Lady Requires is the kind of fun-yet-forgettable historical romance that neither challenges one's intelligence nor insults it. I won't remember it a month from now, but it slid down perfectly pleasantly.

The heroine of What A Lady Requires is Miss Emma Jennings, the only daughter of a wealthy wine merchant. Emma is more interested in balancing her father's ledgers than romance, but when her father informs her that he has arranged a match with handsome, well-born spendthrift Rowan Battencliffe, she accepts the marriage as her duty. Rowan is originally only interested in Emma's dowry, but soon discovers that she has other things to offer, too—a practical disposition, a lush body, and a clever mind.

What A Lady Requires is only available as an $2.99 e-book, which is a solid deal. Nearly everything about this story—the villain, the secondary characters, the central romance—could have been more thoroughly and thoughtfully developed, but there was nothing innately objectionable about it, either. (I can think of some better-known romance writers who could not say the same.) I'm not rushing out to buy the other two books in this series, but I'm definitely adding MacNamara's name to my short list of genuinely beach-read-friendly historical romance novelists.

Review based on publisher-provided copy.