Release Date: July 17, 2025
About the Author: Christina Hwang Dudley is the author of clean historical and contemporary romance. Her historical romances include the Hapgoods of Bramleigh and Ellsworth Assortment series of Regency romances, including THE NATURALIST and TEMPTED BY FOLLY.
In contemporary romance, her PRIDE AND PRESTON LIN (Third State Books, 2024) riffs on Austen, but this time the story is set in the San Francisco Bay Area, with Asian American protagonists who hail from different ends of the economic spectrum.
To join her mailing list and receive a FREE copy of a Hapgoods of Bramleigh novella, visit her website.
MY REVIEW
Christina Dudley’s series Lord Dere’s Dependents follows the adventures of the impoverished Barstow family. Responsible sister Adela was the first to marry, then repentant sister Jane. The third book is a happily-ever-after for Sarah Barstow, the widowed sister-in-law who lives in the tiny cottage with her toddler son and the rest of the family.
The premise of this book is a fun one: Mrs. Sebastian Barstow’s husband was wounded in a naval battle and subsequently died, but in his final letter, Sebastian asked his best friend to take care of his widow…and marry her if the opportunity presents itself. Jilted by his childhood sweetheart and landlocked during a hiatus in the war, Lieutenant Horace Langworthy has few prospects to keep him busy. He travels to check in on Sarah and two-year-old “Bash” in order to fulfill his dying friend’s request. Dutifully, he makes the offer of marriage, and, as expected, Sarah declines. But the way that Sarah declines gets under Horace’s skin so much that he decides he has no intention of leaving the neighborhood until he can tease and torment the exasperating widow as she deserves.
I absolutely adored the banter between Sarah Barstow and Horace Langworthy as well as the contributions of supporting characters. Characters already introduced in previous books (like the snobbish Mrs. Markham Dere) continue in all their glory. In true Dudley stye, the book is full of physical comedy (with lots of opportunity for that now that a two-year-old toddler is involved).
A second marriage plot is tricky to navigate, especially if the heroine happened to adore her first husband. But somehow, Dudley makes both Sarah and the reader fall in love with Horace Langworthy. This is my favorite book of the series so far!
“Ooh!” With a wince, he pressed a hand to his heart. “How you do tend to bear upon a sore spot, Mrs. Sebastian, with these constant reminders that my business is my business and only my business, and your business is your business and not at all my business, world without end. When you know how I longed for your business to be my business and my business your business, but you sent me about my business, did you not?”
To this nonsense Sarah made no reply, however, for she had already walked away.
-The Bestowed Bride by Christina Dudley
Romance with Humor and Heart 
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