At the stroke of midnight…

One minute Grace Lancaster is an overworked event manager organising 2013’s New Year’s Eve ball… The next she’s kissing a rather gorgeous man at the Regency themed party. Everyone’s entitled to an out-of-character New Year’s kiss, right? Except Jasper Mossman, Earl of Bingham, isn’t at a costume party – he’s a real-life gentleman from 1813…

And, it seems, kissing a man in Regency London has consequences!

What Grace considers normal behaviour scandalises Regency society and so far she’s provided the irrepressible gossips of the ton with a season’s worth of conversation! In a scramble to protect her reputation, as well as his own, Jasper insists that they marry for the sake of her honour. Marrying Mr Darcy might be a 21st century girl’s dream – but the reality is far from romantic. Corsets are uncomfortable, no running water is disastrous! Grace had always planned on falling in love before she got married, but when Jasper takes her in his arms she just might believe she’s finally found her very own Prince Charming.

I really liked the idea of a fish out of water with this time travelling romance … except we really didn’t get a lot of that.  Grace fit in a little too easily – she didn’t really struggle with the rules of society or the lack of modern amenities (two things that I think would really throw me for a loop).  Instead she makes friends, lands a fiance (although with quite a scandal to go along with it) and never even blinks at the way things are.  If she’d been a history buff or something, it might have worked but this seemed like a lost opportunity to me, even if it was just for a little extra humor.

If instead of time travelling she’d just been a foreigner to London, the story could have definitely worked.  I liked Grace, Jasper and their assorted friends and family.  The romance is sweet – love (or lust) at first sight that leads to an engagement, two people having to get to know each other, plus a little intrigue involving Jasper’s almost intended all combine to give readers a fun historical romance.

There are a couple of other loose ends that made the ending seem a little rushed to me – there is a character that pops up to play a big part in the story only to then disappear and the key to Grace’s time travelling is found out of the blue.  These were pretty big plot points that I don’t think were given proper attention.

So … if you take it as a historical romance Debutantes Don’t Date is wonderful.  The characters are engaging, the plot around their wedding is interesting, and I liked how their romance led to a happy ending.  It was just the parts around Grace being from the future that I’m not sure were handled as deftly as they could have been.  Overall though I definitely enjoyed it and would be happy to read more by O’Grady.