Review: My Lady's Choosing

If you’ve ever read a romance novel and suddenly screamed “Why would she DO that?” you need My Lady’s Choosing by Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris.  This interactive Regency romance is a wonderful Valentine to the genre, paired with a wicked wink and a throaty chuckle. You are the main character, a penniless lady’s companion to the cantankerous old Lady Craven, and you decide which major decision to make throughout the book in true ‘choose your adventure’ style. 

 Along the way you meet several potential paramours, including the smart, sarcastic Sir Benedict Granville, the mad, bad Lord Garraway Craven, the poor but unbelievably well-built Captain Angus MacTaggart, and the adventurous Lady Evangeline Youngblood. The drama starts, as all good Regency books do, at the ball, and from there you can launch yourself in a multitude of directions. Do you follow hunky war veteran MacTaggart to help the children, or match wits with Sir Benedict? Don't worry, you can do almost all the men in the book, looping your steamy adventures into one wild experience. Of course, you can’t forget Lady Evangeline, either, if you take the right path through Egypt.  The variety of outcomes is truly impressive, including several Happily Ever Afters where you’re the main character, and a few where you’re the sidekick with a boring but sweet life. You can explore gothic or adventure timelines with vampires, werewolves, ghosts and macho desert ruffians or run away with the bad boys. You can even end up unattached with a successful career if you like. And then there’s lovely, awkward Nigel. Hot damn, Nigel!

As you may guess, there are sex scenes here. Some are simple, others are amazing, and many of them made me laugh because of terms like moonlight bouncing off your “womanly orbs” or “being able to make love as tender as it is violent while balancing on one leg and using a bust of John Donne for support.” There’s also a whole paragraph-long sex scene with postal puns, but you should find that one for yourself.  The sex scenes are done with over-the-top descriptive but not vulgar language, and if you’ve read a lot of romances (especially older ones) then these in-jokes are for you.

This is a joyful blast of a book you can read over and over again, never ending up at the same place twice unless you choose to do so. It’s the perfect remedy for any of those maddening books you throw against the wall.

My Lady's Choosing: An Interactive Romance Novel will be available from Quirk Books on April 3.

A free ARC was provided to this reviewer.