ISBN: 978-1-61921-008-0
Historical
E-book
Reviewed by Helen
Weblink: http://store.samhainpublishing.com/love-passages-p-73203.html.
Obtained via publisher
Rating: 2
Ryan Collier is a philosopher with an
insistence on silence and order in his life. The arrival of his flighty sister
and his cousin’s three children have driven him to distraction and he wants a
fierce governess to guide his sister and control the children. Miranda Kent
desperately needs this job and agrees with his principles. Besides she has
always loved children and welcomes the opportunity to earn money and pay back
her father’s debt.
On the surface this is a fun story with three badly behaved children, an irrepressible rogue, a strict and repressed hero, a well-meaning and clever heroine, and a flighty but loving sister. Each character is well drawn with various layers to them which is great. One character does a backflip behaviorally near the end of the book, but it was relatively believable. The plot is a bit predictable although well written. However, I’ve never met any three-year-olds with such a mature attitude and well-structured sentences as Amy.
My problem was the setting. Although no date or place or time is given, this is clearly a historical romance. They travel by carriage, have a governess, are “gentlemen” living at home on a property instead of working and so on. Yet the characters act in a completely twenty-first century way. Historically women did not read or sew in their bedrooms. They stayed in a morning room all together. (Fires were a lot of work and expense so not lit in bedrooms except at bedtime). A man would never enter an unmarried woman’s room nor would he kiss a woman’s neck in public. These things were a declaration of an immediate intent to marry her. The facts about money were also wrong. A woman had absolutely no rights to money or property. Her husband controlled everything. The Married Women’s Property Act was passed in 1870 but didn’t change things very much. So as a story, this is readable, but as historical romance the history is strictly wallpaper, which disappointed me.
On the surface this is a fun story with three badly behaved children, an irrepressible rogue, a strict and repressed hero, a well-meaning and clever heroine, and a flighty but loving sister. Each character is well drawn with various layers to them which is great. One character does a backflip behaviorally near the end of the book, but it was relatively believable. The plot is a bit predictable although well written. However, I’ve never met any three-year-olds with such a mature attitude and well-structured sentences as Amy.
My problem was the setting. Although no date or place or time is given, this is clearly a historical romance. They travel by carriage, have a governess, are “gentlemen” living at home on a property instead of working and so on. Yet the characters act in a completely twenty-first century way. Historically women did not read or sew in their bedrooms. They stayed in a morning room all together. (Fires were a lot of work and expense so not lit in bedrooms except at bedtime). A man would never enter an unmarried woman’s room nor would he kiss a woman’s neck in public. These things were a declaration of an immediate intent to marry her. The facts about money were also wrong. A woman had absolutely no rights to money or property. Her husband controlled everything. The Married Women’s Property Act was passed in 1870 but didn’t change things very much. So as a story, this is readable, but as historical romance the history is strictly wallpaper, which disappointed me.
Note: This is not an erotic romance.
This is an objective review and not an
endorsement of this book.
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