“Nine Ladies Dancing”

“Twelve days, nine women, and the challenge to not fall in love. He’d have nothing to worry about, if his best friend weren’t one of the nine.

Matthew Pratt wouldn’t change a thing about his life—especially when he learns his childhood friend, Meg, will be joining him and his family for the holiday season. To make matters even better, his mother promises to no longer push him to marry, so long as Matthew meets with nine ladies of her choosing between Christmas and Twelfth Night. For an added prize from his father, Matthew must also keep from falling in love with any of the ladies. Unable to say no to a challenge, Matthew agrees, but that is before he realizes that Meg is numbered with the nine.

Meg Baker has always loved Matthew as a friend, but only recently has she discovered that her feelings are growing beyond that of simple camaraderie. Anxious to discover Matthew’s own feelings, Meg decides to draw as much attention to herself as possible during Christmastide, all before he returns to school.

As the holiday festivities begin, however, and Matthew takes an interest in other women—a great deal of other women—Meg fears she is too late to win his affection. But when a change comes in their relationship, Matthew must decide if he will remain comfortably single forever—or if Meg is worth the risk of a happily ever after.

Book 4 in the Belles of Christmas series, Nine Ladies Dancing, is a standalone Regency holiday romance. The series can also be enjoyed in this order:

Unmasking Lady Caroline by Mindy Burbidge Strunk, Book 1
Goodwill for the Gentleman by Martha Keyes, Book 2
The Earl’s Mistletoe Match by Ashtyn Newbold, Book
Nine Ladies Dancing by Deborah M. Hathaway, Book 4
A Duke for Lady Eve by Kasey Stockton, Book 5″

Content:

It was a decent book, pretty clean. I used to read a ton of regency books, but I really burnt myself out of them, so that might be partially why I didn’t love this one. Anyway, I won’t reread it most likely. The Christmas part was fun even though it wasn’t the main focus of the book. It follows the true, 12 days of Christmas, celebrating the 12 days afterwards and that was interesting to me.

It is part of a five book series, all are standalones and written by different authors. This book is on Kindle Unlimited, but I don’t think the entire series it.

My favorite character was Matthew’s sister Lousia. Matthew frustrated me because of his actions, but he wasn’t a bad character, just very, very blind, lol. I don’t have much to say about Meg, a part of the book featuring her internal conflict seemed out of place to me, but I can’t really share without spoiling it.

Christianity(magic/spoilers)- There is no Christianity featured in this book–or at least any that I count. A side character is a Revard, and is mentioned that Meg and Lousia consider him handsome, amusing but dull. This is said several times, and Matthew wishes that another character, one of the nine, was there to distract him, because she talked entirely about the Bible in their interactions. (I didn’t love the “dull” ness, it just rubbed me the wrong way and that brought my personal rating down.)

Profanity- none.

Romance- There are three kisses, and at the end in the epilogue, Matthew kisses her neck, a year after the last chapter, and after they were married. (…I didn’t love that…)

I recommend this for 16+.

Personal Thoughts:

This wasn’t my favorite Christmas book, but it was enjoyable. It had lower stakes, and wasn’t stressful to read though the characters were frustrating to me personally. My personal rating is 2 stars, maybe 3. I kind of feel bad about that. I just didn’t enjoy it as much as I hoped I would.

My least favorite character was Matthew’s mom. Matthew’s mother was kind and basically a mother to Meg, but she also frustrated me, because she indirectly hurt Meg with the challenge. Matthew is in charge of his actions, but when you basically “paid” your son to “date” nine different women someone will get hurt, and it doesn’t help that she knew before hand that Meg was in love with her son. For someone who knew exactly how to help Matthew see the truth, she didn’t think that out very well. She did have good intentions and wanted him to see that he was in love with Meg. I just needed to vent that.