Regency Rose - Caroline Brooks

THE INFORMAL EARL


The Earl of Llandath seemed intent on thoroughly disrupting young and lovely Miss Kate Vaughn's life. When this dark and handsome nobleman returned from abroad to reclaim his ancestral estate, he raised clouds of speculation about where he had been and what he had done.

Then, most unfortunately, he caused Kate to lose here position in the wealthy Stockwood household and shattered her hopes of finding true love with the gallant and idealistic Stockwood heir. And to add to Kate's distress, as she trudged wearily along the highway toward a fearful future and a quite probably dreadful fate, the earl swept her up into his coach and informed her that he would take charge of her whether she wanted him to or not.

Kate was at the mercy of a lord she had every reason to loathe. And mercy was the one thing that the Earl of Llandath had no intention of offering...

 

I have more than a few doubts on how to review this story. First of all Llandath is not the dark and mysterious man that the blurb seems to suggest and Kate is well able to get herself in trouble without his help.

She is a young lady's companion and fallen in love with the young lady's brother. Her love is reciprocated but you can easily see that the boy is a weakling and that nothing will come of it. When she meets Llandath while walking the fields Kate has no problem is pretending that she is part of the family she serves and making him believe she is a well born lady. Llandath also pretends to be someone else but when later he visits the house expecting to find her the deception is revealed and Kate finds herself out of a job and with no beau because her suitor refuses to stand up to his mother. When Llandath encounters her walking the streets in the rain he decides to help her find a new job. The new job, surprinsingly, is as an actress in a theatre company.

There are several things that I felt could have been better explained, Llandath's past for instance remains a bit too mysterious. It's also obvious from the beginning that he is helping Kate because he is attracted to her but she never seems to see it. Then I'm not sure that just because Kate is good at pretending and imagining stories that she would be a good actress. But she quickly becomes that company's main attraction. She also keeps pining for her lost beau for too much time.

The story does have some attempts at humour. Not enough to make this a funny story though which left me undecided where the author wanted to take this. Especially after Kate's former suitor and his sister both end up in the care of Kate I had my doubts about the plausibility of all this and couldn't help being a bit sorry for Llandath who didn't seem to be any close to getting his HEA.

So, not exactly to my taste I'm afraid and since I wasn't really invested in the characters the whole story dragged a lot in the middle and later parts. People who like to read about theater settings might find this interesting though.

Grade: 2/5

A Sea Change - Caroline Brooks

ONCE BITTEN

Miss Augusta Webb was a chit of a girl when she fell in love with handsome, dashing Robert Darnley. She believed his vows, steeled herself to defy her family for him -- only to have him vanish along with her faith in love and her dreams of happiness. Augusta was a woman now, beautiful, sophisticated, an author of enthralling romances, and pursued by suitors she scorned. She told herself that she detested Mr. Darnley and would never let herself be hurt by such a man again. But when she fled the distractions of London for the calm of a seaside cottage to finish her latest romance, she found herself face to face with Robert Darnley again -- and now there could be no escape from testing the strength of her proud resolve against the strength of his hold upon her heart...

I found the back blurb of this book very misleading. Although the book alludes to the events that took place 10 years ago it does so only briefly. Besides the reference to it when the two main characters first meet again, there is no more mention of it except on a very guarded conversation where, to my view, nothing really is explained.

Besides that, Augusta, who I feel should be at least a bit upset and demanding explanations, seems to forget the matter as soon as her brother tells her their father must have had a hand in the fact that she waited in vain, with her bags packed, for Darnley to appear so that they could run away to Gretna Green. At the very least I would expect a full explanation of Darnley on why didn’t he show up and why he never even contacted her later on… after all he was supposed to love her.

However, the book ends up not being about their past. When they meet again Darnley is the guardian of Lady Towson, a nineteen year old girl who is a lady in her own right and owns the cottage where Augusta is staying with her brother and companion. Since they now move in the same social circles and Augusta’s brother is quite taken with the girl they are thrown together often. A perfect opportunity to explain the past I thought, but no, they just pretend nothing happened and deal civilly with each other.

There’s a convoluted mystery about some secrets sold to Napoleon and a French relation of Lady Towson who comes back to woo her and maybe something more. I must say I was never very interested in the mystery and it seemed to me just another plot device to have Augusta and Darnley working together.

In the end we don’t even see them falling in love again, I was unsure if the author was trying to convince me that they had never been out of love or if they suddenly just fell in love again. There was no tension and I never really felt the attraction.

I think the most funny parts were with Augusta writing her new book about a heroine named Horrida. The name just makes me giggle. Still not good enough.

Grade: 2.5/5