I love it when authors from other genres choose to write a gender bender, and so I was quite excited to stumble upon a body-swapping romance from New York Times best selling author of romance novels Katherine Ashe.
Lady Corrina, an intelligent, well-read young woman, has intellectual ambitions, largely stifled by her sex. lord Ian Chance loves horses, drinking and bedding women. Naturally, Corrina thinks she despises Ian, though they have known each other all their lives. Of course, it does seem the lady doth protest too much.
Enter a magic statue which causes them to switch bodies. Ian wakes up in a room so feminine it makes him want to puke, only to look down and become more horrified to discover he now has a woman’s shape. The situation only gets more nightmarish when he realized he has become Corrina. Corrina, meanwhile, finds herself equally horrified to be in his body. They communicate, trying to figure out what to do, and decide they will have to live each other’s lives as long as they are trapped in their new bodies.
There are some very fun gender swapped moments. Ian complaining of his corsets and being forced to spend his nights at salons. Corrina getting a thrill as she is finally allowed entrance to the exclusive men’s clubs she has been barred from, and then being surprised to find the men she’d thought so shallow are actually intelligent and fun.
Ian suddenly finds himself constrained and limited, having to worry constantly about his reputation, and when a man besmears it Ian finds himself standing behind Corrina while she punches the man to protect Ian’s honor.
We do get some sexual tension between the two as well, but alas their is no physical consumation until they are back in their own bodies. All in all, this is a very fun read, one that derives its enjoyment mainly from being a traditional romance with all the expected beats, but where we get to see a man in the woman’s role, and a woman in the man’s. I say– read on!
T.G. Kadee 