Robyn Mearsley is a new-to-me author, and this appears to be her debut book. As such (and in common with most debuts), it’s slightly lumpy in parts, but it makes for an enjoyable read, a little bit out of the common way.
Here’s the premise: Much Becksleigh is a quiet English backwater, but plans are afoot to build a canal through it, thus connecting it to the outside world and turning it into a bustling town. William Pearce, the ‘gentleman unknown’ of the title, has been sent by his wealthy father to secure all the contracts required to build the canal with the various townsfolk. To him, it seems like a straightforward task. To the young ladies of the town, he is a person of intense interest, and Eleanor, Priscilla and Ruth can’t help wondering what he will be like and building dreams around him.
The plot revolves around both of these elements. William discovers that the townsfolk are a thoroughly difficult bunch to do business with, changing their minds and refusing to help for what seems to him (and to the reader!) to be the most capricious of reasons. And the three young ladies find out that dreams don’t necessarily turn out to be true (but sometimes they do).
Towards the end, there are some dramatic happenings which change everything. Naturally, it all comes right in the end, the hero gets both his canal and the girl, but this merely underscores my principle grumble about the book. For the canal, there are obstacles aplenty, with a new hitch in almost every chapter. For the romance, there is absolutely no friction. They meet, they like each other, relations conspire to throw them together at every opportunity, they decide to get married. Not a single obstacle to slow things down. There’s no kiss, either, and not even a proper declaration of love or proposal. That’s very much in keeping with some of the earlier Regencies, of course, but I was a little disappointed.
I mentioned that the book was lumpy in parts, so I do have a few grumbles. It’s clear that the author has done oodles of research into canals and many other things besides, and a great deal of it found its way into the book. In addition, there’s quite a lot of unnecessary dialogue. Readers don’t need to know every last word of greetings and discussion about the weather, for instance. I struggled a bit with complicated descriptions of family relationships and scenery, although I managed fine without understanding it all. There was some repetition, especially covering an incident that had happened to Eleanor, which was described in full twice, almost word for word the same. And the punctuation was haywire sometimes, with lots of questions missing their question mark.
These are all fairly trivial, however, and didn’t spoil my enjoyment at all. I particularly liked the array of strong characters. William and Eleanor were fairly bland, but the firebrand clergyman and his fanatical daughter were fascinating, and I liked the eccentric Mr Dalton, and Tom with his all-or-nothing style of curricle driving (although I’m still hazy about who precisely Tom was in that tsunami of relations). There was plenty of humour in the book, too. I would have liked just a shade more passion from the principals, but otherwise an unusual and enjoyable read. Four stars.
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