I call Miss Newbury's List by Megan Walker "sort of" a Regency romance because although it hits most of the beats required in a Regency romance, it is also very different from typical books of the genre.
Heroine Rosalind Newbury is a very young woman (19 or so) engaged to a duke she barely knows. The marriage was arranged so that the duke could acquire land owned by Rosalind's father, and her family would become connected to the titled class.
As a dutiful daughter Rosalind is resigned to marrying the duke, even though it doesn't sound like much fun. But she has a list of ten things she wants to experience before the wedding -- things like hanging one of her paintings in a public gallery, and having a picnic.
The first item on her list is learning to swim. So she takes herself to a pond, alone, and almost drowns. She is rescued by Charlie, her best friend's cousin. He helps her complete her list and in the process they fall in love.
SPOILERS:
The duke turns out to be a cad who insists on going through with the wedding even after Rosalind confesses to him her love for Charlie. But her family comes through for her and buys off the duke. Rosalind gets her happily ever after with Charlie, who teaches her how to swim.
This is all pretty standard Regency romance stuff. But in the details the book is very different from the trope. For one thing, both Rosalind and Charlie are solidly middle class. While it's not unusual to have a Regency romance heroine not be upper crust, and very occasionally the hero is not, one of them always is.
More importantly, this book seems much more like an old fashioned young adult novel than a romance, along the lines of Irene Hunt's Up a Road Slowly or even the middle books in the Anne of Green Gables series. Rosalind's journey is one of self-discovery, in which her falling in love with Charlie is a by-product but not the main point. Her internal monologue about her stupid actions (and many of them are), her silly adventures, and her efforts to act maturely are different in quality from the typical Regency romance heroine, whose character growth (if any) is caused by the challenges presented by her relationship with the hero.
I enjoyed Miss Newbury's List. It's also a book I would recommend to my teenage daughters if they want to dip their toes into the types of books they see me reading and scoff at.
Postscript: I read this book almost a year ago, and it inspired me to make a list of my own ten things, many of which I have now done. It's not often that a book actually affects my life, so thank you Megan Walker!
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