This book is, I think, a very deliberate response to the Regency romance genre, albeit one that is sensitive to the genre's appeal.

It is also a fantasy book, but to me that was almost secondary. Zacharias Whyte is the Sorcerer Supreme Royal, who is not widely accepted by the rest of sorcerous England, almost entirely because he is the adopted, black heir of the previous Sorcerer Royal.

Prunella Gentleman is the unfortunately and undeniably brown orphaned ward of a woman who runs a girls' school which teaches girls how to not do any magic.

Prunella and Zacharias encounter each other by chance, and come together to pursue their respective agendas: Prunella to enter society and marry someone white and respectable, Zacharias to discover why magic is fading from England. (Spoiler: both of them end up achieving very different things than they set out to.)

This book deals really well, I thought, with the complicated feelings of transracial adoptees, which is maybe not what you go into your regency romance looking for. It is quite aware of the class issues usually swept under the rug, although I think, by the end, they are side-stepped more than upended. (I mean, asking two minority characters to upend all of England's class issues is an astronomical ask.)

There are some bits that are, however, all too brutally real. Prunella is forced to be ruthless to survive, and the book wants you to understand and embrace her; I think the reader will.