Enjoyable Chase and Romance

It might be silly, but I do love a historical romance book with a good chase! Much of this book is a journey through England and Scotland to first find missing children who deliberately left school in an attempt to track down a spy, and the story continues as the main characters try to figure out what the children have discovered. It was fun to track the story all over Britain. I particularly liked Gil, the hero. He and the heroine had been childhood friends, and as might be typical for youngsters, their relationship had aspects of love/hate. But Gil is a good man and wants to help his former friend in her hour of need. Along the journey, their relationship evolves in a way that is delightful to watch.

There are some issues with this book. While the author did better at maintaining conflict and suspense compared to some of her other books that I have read, I still felt like there were some unnecessary scenes that didn’t really have much of a dramatic impact, move the story forward, or show character. When she attempted to mimic a Scottish accent, it was practically unreadable. Here is an example: “But ’en he got aw radge, and up the twois ay them went tae the bed chamber.” I’m still not quite sure what all of that was supposed to mean. That is very distracting because I just want to know what the person said and keep moving!  There were some other issues with grammar, punctuation, and usage. All in all, I enjoy the chase and the romance enough so that they outweighed these other issues.

Gothic Themes and Delectable Romance

If you enjoy Gothic-style romance, this book will most likely be right up your alley. The hero and heroine have a past with misunderstandings, but when they meet again, sparks fly. Their lives become joined when she helps his ward, who is physically ill but also mentally unstable. The hero wants the heroine back in his life but knows that everything in his world is topsy-turvy. He loves her and doesn’t want his burdens to diminish her sparkle. But can they deny their attraction? What will this mentally unstable ward do?

The author has an evocative way of describing items, settings, and emotions. She ramps up the drama in several places in perfect Gothic style. The hero isn’t as dark as most Gothic heroes, but the secrets he keeps and the circumstances that surround the entire novel are worthy of that genre.  The hero and the heroine have chemistry. I liked that the heroine stood up for herself when she needed to; she wasn’t quite as strong in the beginning of the book, so it was lovely to see her grow into herself. I love personal character arcs in romances like that. The chaperone provided a dry, lovely comic relief. This is the first book I’ve read by this author, and I found the twists and the turns of the plot as well as the deftly defined characters to be fascinating to follow.

More Silly than Funny, More Immature than Mature

I didn’t know quite what to make of this book. When I read the blurb, the premise sounded fun and different for a Regency. The way that it is actually executed comes across as silly rather than funny. The heroine got herself in the initial mess (which essentially is the entire book’s purpose to fix) by listening to the wrong person rather than her own heart and caring more about social climbing than love. The book just feels like a series of pointless and improbable events. There is definitely some drama and misunderstanding, but the interactions between the characters come across as not only unrealistic but actually rather childish for people of their age and social standing. At times, there was too much melodrama and giddiness. This book could have been written humorously but still maintain the proper adult level of interaction. The version of “love” that both the hero and heroine exhibit seems to be more along the lines of teenage crushes rather than mature, adult love.

Not as Good as Others in the Series

I have read several books in the Northumberland Nine series, and this one has darker themes than the other ones. The book even starts at night, when Luna is out attempting to gather herbs that are only easy to distinguish at night. She happens to see three men in conversation on the beach. Are they smugglers? Is their host involved? At least two are other members of the house party, two brothers. The two men are not pleased that she has seen them, and after some amount of time, figure out that she hasn’t seen or heard anything and swear her to silence. The brothers have been caught up in drama caused by the younger one, not smuggling, and the elder brother is wounded from stepping between his brother and the man he was dueling with. The hero’s brother is definitely an irresponsible young man who makes bad decisions and doesn’t seem to care how his actions affect his brother.

I didn’t care for this book as much as I did for the others in the series that I’ve read. The others felt relatively light and fun, but this one had a fair amount of troublesome issues, including that the hero could have died without the care of the heroine. I like my Regencies to be a bit more upbeat and more about the play of manners and decorum than things like duels and possible death. I am an RN, and some of the ways that healing practices were portrayed were highly inaccurate for the time. It makes sense to our modern understanding to sterilize equipment and think of not introducing more potential means for infection, but people back then wouldn’t have thought that way. The germ theory of infection was not a part of medical science until much later in the 1800s and even then acceptance was slow (20+ years). I did like the other books in the series, so I will continue with it, but I did find this book a disappointment compared to the rest.