Reviewed by Charlotte alias Charmian (Goodreads).
Book’s Blurb:
Hell will freeze over before Miss
Philomena Aubrey willingly marries the insufferable Honorable Luther Whyte. Her
mother had angled Mina’s quite hefty dowry in front of the vicar and secured
him, but Mina still resisted. When Mrs. Aubrey threatens to force her into the
marriage, Mina’s father hides his daughter with a friend of his as he leaves
for an extended business trip.
A wounded war hero, burdened by
guilt after inadvertently sending his French fiancée to death, Lord James
Darling keeps his family as far away from his tormented heart as possible. But
as he keeps bumping into his mother’s new lady’s maid, he grows suspicious—is
she a spy?—and sets out to expose her, only to find himself mesmerized by her
feistiness and her warm heart.
My Review:
Mina, short for Philonena, steps to
the stage as the archetypical young heiress of the Nuevo riche in the Regency
era. Presumably her father became extremely wealthy from timely investments and
good business dealings. It must be said as history tells us, a great many of the Nuevo riche were
so wealthy their daughters were sought by aristocrats as a timely means to
bolster ailing funds for sons who were wastrels. Many a rich heiress gained a title from brokered deals cut and dealt across tables at Gentlemen’s clubs in
real life as they do with regularity in Regency romance novels.
Funnily Mina’s mother has set her
marital scheming eye at humble bait, the local vicar no less, and oh lord,
shades of Jane Austen’s Mr Collins leapt to mind straight off. And thank serendipity
Mina is an only child and has a father who dotes on her. Mina can do little
wrong in his eyes, and her mother sees only a wilful minded daughter who refuses
to marry the man of her mother’s choice, ha ha.
While this is a common mother
daughter conflict for Regency novels, the story for me becomes a little
contrived with a father who looks to the help of a childhood playmate, a duchess
(ha) who conveniently has bachelor sons in need of wives. It was all a little
twee perfect and unrealistic but it’s a bunny out of the hat magical fairy tale
and what’s wrong with that.
And then there’s the tortured James
Darling. He’s a secretive man and with Miss Curiosity Mina kitten on his patch
in the guise of a lady’s maid he doesn’t stand an earthly in resisting the
vivacious young madam who seeks to inveigle her way under his skin. Throughout
a theme of will he or won’t he fall in love with Mina makes this romance a fun
read with little touches of haunting sadness from James’s past. For all her
silly childish antics I liked Mina a lot. James was more a muddle of conflicting
caricatures and didn’t materialise as a solid character, not for me at any rate. An Heiress in Disguise is what it is, a well written fun romance with a few raunchy pulse driven scenes.
