Reading this made me realize that one of my favorite things to happen in a historical romance is for the main characters to be forced together in an unusual way that unexpectedly fosters true intimacy. In A Lady Awakened, what initially brings Theo and Martha together is sex -- unwanted, unpleasant sex. Martha, a proper lady to her very core, feels forced to rent her feckless neighbor Theo’s services as a stud so that she can quickly produce an heir, and save her late husband’s estate from going to a man known for abusing his female servants. Theo, at first happy to oblige, soon finds that servicing a woman who is disgusted by his best efforts is deeply disheartening.

I’m really making this sound good, aren’t I? Well, while Martha and Theo are meeting each other secretly for sex, they are also slowly getting to know each other. And while Martha’s high principles begin to infect Theo with an interest in his land and his dependents, Theo begins to make Martha aware that there’s more to him than she realized -- and that there can be more to sex than procreation.

A Lady Awakened initially seemed a slightly misleading title, because Martha is not a stranger to either sexual desire or sexual pleasure, on her own. She’s at first unbelieving she could have pleasure with a partner, and then unwilling to compromise her ethically shady position any further by receiving it. What eventually wins Martha over is not Theo’s studly skills in the bedroom, but his increasingly stellar qualities as a person:

“Serious, conscientious, and seeking her opinion: he could have had anything he wanted of her in that moment. She pressed her lips together. Generosity demanded generosity in return. ‘Think on it. Sleep on it. You’ll make the right choice.’

She felt his pleasure as surely as though his skin was shuddering against hers. He was all but a virgin in this, the experience of being taken seriously. Perhaps no woman--no one at all--had ever gazed at him with quiet faith and encouraged him to believe in his own abilities.”

I love the emotional symmetry here: Martha, who needs so much to be taken seriously by men herself, discovering that this is something she can give to a man, who needs it as much as she does. That realization of the possibility of reciprocity between a couple, sexually and emotionally, is Martha’s true awakening.

This is a leisurely told story, with more information about daily estate life than is currently popular in historical romance, but I never found it boring. Martha’s cold affect made it harder to passionately love the story and the ending is not entirely satisfying, but it was a very interesting and rewarding read, and a promising debut.