I absolutely devoured Private Arrangements by Sherry Thomas! It's one of my favorite books for the year. I daresay it's the best Regency I've ever read, and it has renewed my interest in Regencies. I hadn't read one for a long time before this one, but I'll be seeking out others in the future--at the very least, more books by this author. 
 Her writing was exceptional and pushed all my emotional buttons. I couldn't put the book down, even though it hurt me to see these two characters inflicting such pain on each other. And that's actually why I couldn't put it down, because I needed to see them get their HEA after making my heart hurt so much. 
 Now to the story. 
 After 10 years of estrangement, Gigi contacts her husband and lets him know that she wants a divorce. He's been living in America and says he won't give her a divorce until she provides him with an heir, and they've got one year to work on it. She has another suitor, by the way, which throws a monkey wrench in their relationship moving forward, so she agrees to his ridiculous arrangement. 
 Why were they even separated? Because Gigi did something devious so she could win the hero, Camden, for herself. Unfortunately, he found out and told her, "...being in love does not give you any excuse to be less than honorable, Lady Tremaine." From then on, he set out to hurt her, and he did an excellent job of it until she finally abandoned her efforts to earn his forgiveness and win him back. 
 I thought he was too harsh. Did she deserve to be punished? Sure. What she did was wrong. But he stayed away for 10 years!!! He never let her make it up to him. And she tried and tried. Not only that, about 5 years into their estrangement, he saw her, but they missed getting together. I thought he should go to her and try to work things out, but he didn't, and I was not happy. 
 Later in the book I learned that part of why he stayed away so long was because he wanted to come back into her life as his own man. When they married, she had all the wealth, and all he had was a title and lots of debt from his parents' mismanagement of their estate. While I still didn't like him staying away so long--the penalty didn't fit the crime IMHO--it did make a little more sense because I could imagine him working hard to come back to her with his own money. 
 I really enjoyed the heroine. She was not only sassy, she was a smart business woman. She helped other women less fortunate than her by offering them loans, and she didn't give a crap about what others thought of her. She even had other lovers during her estrangement from her husband. Usually the heroine is celibate while the hero runs through women like changing underwear. Not so with Gigi, and it made perfect sense considering the way Thomas characterized the heroine. 
 If you like books that pull at the heartstrings, this novel does a really good job of it. I look forward to reading Thomas's other books. Like me, you'll be relieved they finally work things out. I've already started checking out Thomas's other titles to see which one I'll read next when I'm in the mood for another historical romance. 
 I rate this a 5+++++. It was perfect!!