She was free to choose him. He needed to be free before he could promise her a future. New South Wales, 1793. Beatrice Fenwick arrives in a new colony with a ledger, a stubborn father, a restless younger brother, and plans for a home that exists only on paper. Gideon Larkham is the convict carpenter assigned to her father’s holding—skilled, sharp-tongued, fiercely independent, and with little more than a year left on his sentence. She trusts figures. He trusts timber. They disagree about almost everything. Until irritation becomes respect. Respect becomes trust. And somewhere between unfinished walls, failing crops, hard-won laughter, and arguments neither knows how to stop, trust becomes something far more dangerous. Because Gideon is still serving. His labour is assigned. His movements are controlled. And a future with Beatrice cannot be treated like another decision for someone else to make. Beatrice believes problems exist to be solved. Gideon has survived by refusing to depend on anything that can be taken from him. So when Beatrice tries to solve the one problem Gideon refuses to place in another person’s hands, everything they have built begins to fracture. And with freedom finally drawing closer, loving each other may prove easier than deciding what comes after. Warm, romantic, and threaded with dry wit, Love Without Approval is a slow-burn Australian historical romance about forbidden choices, hard-won trust, family, freedom, and two stubborn people learning that building a life together requires more than love. For readers who love emotionally satisfying historical romance, strong heroines, capable heroes, slow-burn chemistry, and a deeply earned happy ending.
