Not Able to Get Past Not Liking Hero

In a departure from most Regency books about a compromise, both the hero and heroine at the heart of the story are determined not to be thrust into an unwelcome marriage. The heroine had decided that being a spinster was her best course of action after she lost an early love. If she is to marry, she wishes to do so only for love, but that is becoming more and more unlikely the older she gets. When they are discovered in a compromising state, the hero believes that he can buy the silence of the observers, but the heroine’s uncle has other ideas. To help the young woman, the hero decides to choose potential suitors from amongst his friends that might make an ideal husband for her.

I felt like this story had several plot holes. We’re told a little about the heroine’s first love, but we don’t really know the full story of their romance and what their relationship was truly like that would make her decide it was best to remain a spinster. There’s also a bad guy in the story, of course, but that just kind of fizzled out without any resolution. I found the language of the book to be somewhat stilted. I imagine the author is trying to mimic what she believes are Regency speech and language patterns, but it just doesn’t work and is more distracting than engaging. When the hero and heroine first meet, he comes across as a real jerk, and since the story is of novella length, I didn’t learn enough about his character or see enough of a growth arc to get past my initial bad feelings about him. For me, for a romance to work, I have to like the hero—finding him swoon-worthy is even better—and I have to believe that he is the best choice for the heroine. Unfortunately, that did not happen here.

Wrong-Headed, Right-Hearted Hero Nearly Bungles it All

What a wrong-headed hero! In this mixed-up tale of brothers and sisters, surviving brother Phillip means to make himself the brother of the woman he loves—whom he believes loved his now dead brother—by marrying her sister in order to make amends, as he believes that he is to blame for his brother’s death. Yes, that sentence could take a little to unpack! Phillip and Julia have loved each other their entire lives, but Phillip believes that she belongs to his deceased brother. So the best that he can do by her, while remaining true to his brother’s memory, is marry her sister. Unbeknownst to Phillip, he has it completely wrong. It is his beloved’s sister, Allison—the one he is going to pursue—who loved his brother and now blames Phillip for his death. How will this get untangled? Will Phillip realize what’s going on in the hearts of the sisters and be true to his own?

It was hard to believe that no one recognized Phillip at first; really, it was only five years, and adults’ looks don’t change THAT much. I felt the conversation and language in this book was a bit stilted at times. You can tell that the author is trying to sound like a more formal Regency book, but the effect fell a little short. I thought some paragraphs were a little too blocky and long. Given the rather complex plot, I thought the length of the story was too short for it fully to be explored. Other than these factors, I actually enjoyed this read, and I found both Julia and Phillip to be engaging and Allison to be rather annoying (in a fun way).

Hero and Heroine Change and Grow

I am a great fan of Regency romance, and while I have read quite a few lately, most of them have left me desiring something different, something of a little more quality. I’m delighted to say I found that with this book. I loved that the heroine was a little older and not the stunning beauty that seems to be required of all heroines in romance (whether contemporary or historical). She was smart, kind, and compassionate—which is exactly how I like my Regency heroines to be. The hero was an approachable and likable one, not to irascible for once, but rather a good and decent man with a great affection for those in his care (like his sister). So the two main characters were simply a delight. The machinations of a plot though, kept them romantically apart for a while because all assumed that the heroine’s more beautiful younger sister would be the perfect match for him. It was a delight to see the hero and heroine’s blossoming affection, and both characters grew as people as well during the course of the novel. Unfortunately, this is far too uncommon in romance and especially Regency romance; so finding that here was a lovely surprise. Both these two characters had to learn more about themselves and how to fully appreciate another person. There were some issues with grammar, punctuation, and spelling, including surprising ones like incorrect verb forms and wrong forms of other words. This was somewhat distracting, unfortunately. But in the end, I found this to be a sweet, relatively low angst story that was simply a pleasure to read.

Stilted Language and Uninspired Plot

This very short novella can be read in under an hour. The heroine discovers the duke after he’s had a riding accident and has subsequently lost his memory. She’s able to get him inside and tends to him. His family and friends are searching for him, and they finally find him three days later with the heroine. The duke cannot remember or recognize these people still, so he asks that the heroine come back with him so that he can have one person whom he knows.

This book has some very awkward praising and dialogue that seems neither wholly Regency nor wholly contemporary. It is overly formal; the thoughts themselves don’t seem like natural ones people would have. The book also has issues with grammar, punctuation, and usage. Commas are problematic on several counts. A few wrong words were used. I do have one historical quibble. I don’t believe that back in Regency times there was anything so formal as a nursing school. Even a hundred years ago, it was more common for nurses to be trained right in a hospital, not in a school, and this would only have lasted for a few weeks.