Luke, Viscount Enstone’s, resolve to avoid a love match is tested to its limit when he accepts responsibility for the Davenport family.
Luke has found it hard to sort out his late father’s affairs. A dishonest secretary and ailing land agent have left the family estates in disorder. With new people in place, he sets off to one of his smaller properties to discover the extent of an obligation that seems out of keeping with the cold-hearted father he remembers. Who is the young woman living at Shepley Hall and what was her connection to his father?
Miss Kitty Davenport has waited for a long time to find out if the new Viscount Enstone will continue the support his father gave to her family and her patience is wearing thin. Will he carry on paying for her young brother’s education and even assist him in finding a career? For herself, all she needs is help to find a suitable position as a companion and to escape from the unwanted attentions of a persistent suitor.
My Review:
Miss Cavendish is in a pickle. Guardian to her younger brother Edward, the passing of her aunt has left her without respectable companionship, or the means to acquire more. She has no choice but to accept whatever charity Viscount Enstone, whose father had been providing assistance to them, chooses to deal out. The only problem is that Luke had no idea she even existed, and can’t comprehend why his father would have been helping them out in the first place.
There’s enough plot here to make this interesting - a lecherous neighbour, a secret inheritance, an accidental compromise that forces Luke’s hand - but the execution felt a little lacking to me. There’s definitely too much telling rather than showing and I actually found the writing a little hard to follow as well - the author has a tendency to change points of view without a scene break, and to write long sentences without commas to break up clauses which can lead to confusion.
Honestly, I think the only thing this needed to be excellent was a strong line edit, but I would strongly encourage the author to get that done. As it stands, while I enjoyed the characters and felt the story was strong, my discomfort with the writing would keep me from committing to reading another full book by this author without having first read a sample to check it had been more thoroughly edited than this. I cannot give it more than three stars.
Disclaimer: I received a review copy of this title via Rachel’s Random Resources.
Author Bio – Josie lives in the English midlands, surrounded by towns full of history such as Evesham, Stratford-Upon- Avon, Warwick and Worcester. Which is perhaps why her favourite reads are historical. Out of all the periods to choose from the Regency Era stirs her imagination the most. The true Regency lasted from 1811 until 1820 but dates as wide as 1789 to 1837 have been included in the extended Regency period. For Josie the true flavour of this period emerges after the iniquitous hair powder tax of 1795, unsurprisingly, scuppered the fashion for hair powder almost overnight.
Josie has always dabbled in stories but it took the combined efforts of her sister and eldest niece to set her on the path to writing novels. Her Regency romances, with a dash of adventure and intrigue, are the result.
There is more information on her website at www.josiebonhamauthor.com
Social Media Links –
Twitter @BonhamJosie