Our Intrepid Heroine

This is my favorite Julia Quinn yet. I was almost late for work because I started reading this before breakfast, then looked up and realized it was 15 minutes after I was supposed to have left, but I hadn't noticed because I was giggling too hard at the dialogue in this story.

I loved the hero (who didn't make any boneheaded moves like telling the heroine what to do, ordering her around, or being a smug, sarcastic bastard unless situationally appropriate), and the heroine cracked me up. The best thing, though, was their friendship.

You don't get a lot of male/female friendship in most romance novels. Here, though, they became actual friends and bonded over the worst Gothic novels ever before falling in love. That was awesome!

Also, the scenes in which they suddenly realized their attraction were well-written and interesting. And good lord, Sebastian's dramatic reading of a Miss Butterworth novel made my life.