Gervase and his dysfunctional family meet up for a Christmas celebration and three siblings from a neighbouring family join them, including Alicia, who is engaged to Gervase's brother Reg, and Margaret, who was once engaged to Gervase's (now dead) brother, Hal. Gervase has been in love with Margaret for eight years. Lots of bickering between brothers and intriguing by parents. Margaret and Gervase deserve each other, if only for the fact that they are among the few likeable characters. ( )

This is an AU (Alternate Universe) retelling of the film The Lion in Winter, which is itself a reworking of a play, which was based on the tempestuous marriage of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. It's more about the movie than the historical characters, and a lot of the non-romance plot and characterizations draw from the film.

The romance is appealing; it's a friends-to-lovers story in which a middle son of a duke and a widow (who was engaged to his elder brother) fall in love. The story takes place at Christmas in Yorkshire in 1888. The problems come from trying to take 12thC people and drop them into the mid to late Victorian era, and well as taking a 1968 play and not updating its attitudes about homosexuality.

I'm really not sure who the target readership is. If you're a big fan of the film and don't care about the history (and are willing to over look some anachronisms), then it might work for you. If you don't know the film at all, then it might work for you too. I fell in neither camp and so it was a disappointment. ( )