The Derbyshire Dance by Rosanne Lortz (2025)

Posted January 27, 2026 by Mary Kingswood in Review / 0 Comments

As always, a wonderful read from one of my favourite writers, with a very unconventional hero and heroine, a lovely slow-burn romance and a villain thoroughly redeemed.

Here’s the premise: Miss Belinda Morrison is settling contentedly into permanent spinsterhood with her aunt, carefully tending their small farm for her absent brother. A new vicar with an eye to acquiring both Belinda and her prosperous property sets her a challenge, which she sees off in outrageous (but very funny) style. And this sets the tone for the rest of the books – I‘ve rarely laughed so much at a Regency romance.

But there’s another new neighbour, a mysterious and reclusive single gentleman, living at a neighbour’s house while the neighbours are away. When Bel’s cat disappears, she gets to meet Mr Nigel Lymington, who has been pampering the cat with ham and lots of stroking. Bel is happy simply to rescue the cat, but Nigel is intrigued by this self-sufficient woman who manages her farm and isn’t remotely interested in him or society generally.

Readers with a better memory than mine will know that Nigel appeared in an earlier book as the villain and got deposited here in Derbyshire, far from his usual haunts in London, by the tides of the plot. Needing to rusticate because of some shenanigans in that book, he’s hiding not just his person but also his identity. I had forgotten all that, but it doesn’t matter at all, and the locals soon find out that he’s actually the Duke of Warrenton, avoiding both a creditor and his ancestral responsibilities as duke. I confess, I’ve never found tales of an impoverished duke terribly plausible. All those vast acres they invariably own (because dukedoms weren’t handed out without land) produce a fabulous income, as a rule. But let that pass.

From this point on, the romance unfurls at a steady pace, although with characters as unusual as this, there are constant surprises along the way, all of them delightful. I have to say, I love a story that surprises me, and this one does it in spades. Eventually, it dawns on Nigel that he’s never going to win his lady unless he follows her example and takes care of his own land and tenants. Well, he knows it because she tells him very clearly – ‘Fix it,’ she says, and off he goes to do just that.

This is the only (very, very small) niggle I have with the book, that Nigel disappears off to Lincolnshire for months on end, without making any contact with Bel to reassure her that he is coming back and yes, he still wants to marry her. All this while the avaricious vicar is still hovering around Bel. It would have served him right if she had married the vicar in the meantime.

There are some surprising (that word again!) twists at the end before the romance wraps up neatly. A beautifully written book, redeeming a previous villain in splendid style, with a charmingly eccentric heroine and an honourable mention for the cat. Five stars.

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Miss Ridley and the Duke by C N Jarrett (2024)

Posted January 27, 2026 by Mary Kingswood in Review / 0 Comments

A curious little book with so little substance that it feels as light as thistledown. If I don’t write a review on the spot, I shall have forgotten the whole thing by tomorrow.

Here’s the premise: Annabel Ridley, the daughter of a baron, is betrothed to Richard Balfour, who seems a pleasant sort of fellow, right up until the point where Annabel finds him rolling in the hay with one of the maids. She wants to call it off, but neither he nor her father will hear of it. Of course, legally she can’t be forced to marry against her will, but let that pass. In desperation, she seeks the help of Richard’s cousin, the Duke of Halmesbury, riding to his estate at night (astride, wearing breeches, natch), where he offers her a way out of her dilemma – he’ll marry her himself, a marriage of convenience. She’s surprised, having only hoped he’d use his influence, but he’s extremely good looking and seems nice enough, so why not?

Of course, he has reasons for his seemingly altruistic offer, which gradually seep out over the course of the book, although not without a whole heap of soul-searching and not a few temper tantrums from the principals. Frankly, it all got a bit tiring after a while, and I confess to skipping over the angsty parts of later chapters to get to the places where something actually happens. To be honest, everybody seemed a bit emotional for the Regency era, which is generally defined by its restraint. Still, for those who enjoy that sort of thing, there’s plenty of it here.

There are numerous Americanisms, such as gotten and passed (instead of died), and Annabel at one point rides into ‘Wiltshire County’ (a shire is a county, so it would just be Wiltshire). And there’s this evil concoction of a title: Lord Josiah Ridley, Baron of Filminster. Let’s deconstruct that a bit, shall we? Lord Josiah Ridley would be the younger son of a marquess or duke, and no, Lord Ridley won’t do, either. Barons are never ‘of’ anything. They will be either Baron Name or Baron Name of Somewhere, except that the ‘baron’ part is never used except in the most formal of legal documents. He’d just be Lord Filminster in all social situations. Although, amusingly, his daughter just calls him ‘the baron’, which is perfectly acceptable (if a bit rude of her own father!).

There’s nothing much wrong with this book, it just wasn’t my cup of tea, that’s all. It’s a clean read, although with references to sex, but if you prefer your Regency with a bit of heat, the steamy version is published under the author name Nina Jarrett and title ‘The Duke Wins A Bride’. Three stars.

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My Dear Jenny by Madeleine E Robins (1980)

Posted January 27, 2026 by Mary Kingswood in Review / 0 Comments

This is a follow-on to Althea, which I loved. This isn’t quite so good, being a bit scattershot, but still a pretty good read.

Here’s the premise: country girl Jenny Prydd is unexpectedly invited to the wedding of relations of an old friend (the hero and heroine of the previous book). Setting off with a grumpy maid, she stops at a wayside inn for a break and some food. While there, a local doctor declares a quarantine because the innkeeper’s son has measles. Everyone inside the inn is required to stay put until all risk of infection is gone. I’m not totally convinced that Regency medicine bothered with full-blown quarantine, rather than simply keeping the infected person isolated, but never mind. Trapped with Jenny at the inn are Emily Pellering and Adrian Ratherscombe, an eloping couple, Peter and Domenic Teverley, an uncle and nephew, and a clergyman. When they realise what is going on, the rest of the inhabitants conspire to protect Emily from fortune hunter Ratherscombe.

The group spend three weeks (!) trapped at the inn, before setting off again for London, including Emily whose family have been notified of her location and send a carriage to rescue her. Jenny moves in with Emily to protect her, even though she has her own family to do that, and Jenny is supposed to be staying with her friend. But the plot needs her to be with Emily, so there we are. The Teveleys call regularly, since Domenic likes Emily, while she is drawn to the enigmatic Peter. The wrinkle in this particular tale is that Emily likes Peter, too, having been very taken by his romantic and heroic sorting out of the obnoxious Mr Ratherscombe by way of his fists.

In London, Jenny is allowed to enjoy herself hugely at a variety of social occasions, while also acting as wise mentor for Emily, who naturally doesn’t listen to a word she says. The real villain of the piece turns out to be Domenic’s mother, Lady Teeve, who is a thoroughly nasty piece of work, while pretending to be very kind to Jenny and Emily. She’s so ‘kind’, in fact, that she invites them to her country home for a week’s house party, where she settles down to some ritual humiliation of them both. This is where things go slightly off the rails for me. I found it hard to believe any mother who wanted to keep her precious son away from an unworthy female would invite said female to spend a week in the family’s bosom where they are bound to be thrown together, but there we are. It does make for a dramatic interlude.

The house party does throw up one absolute howler of a mistake on the author’s part: Jenny and Emily travel from London to Cumberland (a distance close to 300 miles, which takes the non-stop mail coach no less than 48 hours) in a single day, without even one stop, even to change horses. Magical horses, indeed!

But otherwise, there’s not much to complain about, the plot unravels reasonably smoothly, if you don’t apply too much logic to it, and the romantic denouement is lovely. Four stars.

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Review: Marguerite by Marina Montrose (2025)

Posted December 19, 2025 by Mary Kingswood in Review / 0 Comments

An intriguing read by a new-to-me author, with a fascinating hero and heroine. The focus is very much on the two principals, so there’s not much else going on, and the background is the conventional season and all the usual events, but if you don’t mind a bit of sex in your Regency, this is a pleasant read.

Here’s the premise: Lady Marguerite Lennox is the only child of indulgent parents, encouraged by her father in particular to be independent. She’s not particularly on the watch for a husband and under no pressure to find one, so when the Duke of Argyle makes her a surprise offer, she refuses. Her parents are disappointed, because when will she ever have a better offer? But the duke is piqued and decides he’s going to have her anyway. He’ll do whatever it takes to bend her to his will, and rapidly becomes obsessed by her.

Marguerite, meanwhile, is intrigued by him. She thinks he’s cold, arrogant, a haughty aristocrat, and she can’t see herself married to such a man. Whenever they meet, they seem to quarrel. There are other suitors who are more pleasant to deal with, yet she finds herself becoming more and more drawn to Argyle. She still doesn’t like him, but when he cheekily steals a kiss, she can’t help responding.

And so, gradually, they inch towards each other, as she tries to make him out, sometimes seeing a mellower man inside, and sometimes a more passionate one, but mostly just disliking him, while he grows ever more determined that she’s going to be his, whatever it takes.

I have to say, I strongly disapproved of his methods in that regard, in one scene in particular. Marguerite was pretty stupid to go along with it, but when a heroine takes to wandering about the house in her shift in the middle of the night (“I’ll just get myself a book to read from the library…”), the reader pretty much knows how it’s going to go. But it’s still not behaviour expected of a hero. And she still won’t marry him!

Eventually Fate intervenes, in the form of a rather clunky plot device to bring the two reluctant lovers to their senses. This is at the 75% point, so the rest of the book is the two analysing their feelings at great length, and revisiting every previous interaction and explaining their behaviour to each other. And having sex. Then there’s the wedding and tidying up, so it’s basically an extended epilogue.

The writing style is gentle rather than melodramatic, so we don’t get much description of emotional turmoil, it’s more head than heart, but that’s in keeping with the characters. I was very much a fan of Argyle pursuing Marguerite determinedly – I love a hero who knows his own mind. But Marguerite’s objections were sensible, too, even if her actions weren’t always.

My over-sensitive pedantometer wasn’t much troubled. I spotted a couple of typos, and no Americanisms or anachronisms. Marguerite’s female relations must be the world’s worst chaperons, but I can (just about) let that go. My only grumble is the titles. There was a real Duke of Argyll (only slightly different spelling) in the Regency which still exists today, and assuming Marguerite’s father is an Earl (not stated but since she’s Lady Marguerite, he must be at least that), there have been actual Earls of Lennox, and Lennox was a dukedom by the Regency. I think it’s a mistake to use real titles, not least because descendants might take exception and call in the lawyers, but it’s also rather rude. It’s not hard to create fictional titles – just pick a British town.

An interesting book, with an unusual hero and heroine. Four stars.

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Review: Althea by Madeleine Robins (1977)

Posted October 28, 2025 by Mary Kingswood in Review / 2 Comments

This one was a joy to read. The exchanges between hero and heroine are genuinely witty, both are interesting characters, the side plots are realistic and it’s beautifully written.

Here’s the premise: Althea Ervine is treated more like a housekeeper than a daughter of the household. Her father and brother seem incapable of managing without her, but when she tires of being taken for granted and escapes to her married sister in London, Mary takes up her cause with enthusiasm and determines to rig Ally out in fashionable style and give her a wonderful time.

And a wonderful time she does indeed have, being pursued by handsome, charming Edward Pendarly, and then there’s Sir Tracy Calendar, with whom she exchanges scintillating and witty banter (which is genuinely funny, by the way, unlike much so-called witty banter to be found in modern Regencies). Sir Tracy — actually, hold it right there for a moment. I hate, hate, hate this as a male name, but I’m told it is an authentic Regency name, so… {shrug}. But authors, please don’t be tempted.

Where was I? Sir Tracy {rolls eyes} makes some cryptic remark about Pendarly, which is actually intended to warn Ally that he is already betrothed (as the reader already knows), but Ally takes it as a curmudgeonly insult against the handsome, charming etc Edward, and decides to dislike Tracy. When she finds out the truth, and Tracy takes the opportunity to rush to a proposal, she accepts in a fit of pique.

So far, so very conventional Regency. It’s a pity that heroines don’t establish, with every offer from the hero, his precise reasons for making it, so that they don’t agonise for endless chapters over it, and would find out at once, instead of waiting for 200 pages, that he loves her, but then I suppose most novels would collapse to the length of a short story. Anyway, Ally doesn’t, but her agonisings aren’t as tedious as such things usually are, partly because Tracy understands her state of mind perfectly and makes allowances, and partly because he displays just that degree of unruffled calm in the face of her turbulence that is so appealing in a hero. I can cope with a heroine who gets in a tizz, but there are very few heroes who are improved by such behaviour.

Tracy lapses into a bit of a tizz himself late in the book, which I thoroughly disapproved of. Heroes who want to win their lady in the end need to stick close to her, and for heaven’s sake, how hard can it be to tell her you love her? But no, Tracy goes wandering off, and then has to do some chasing to catch up with her, and convince her that he really does love her. But of course he does the right thing in the end, and all ends just as expected.

There are a few anachronisms but nothing to stop me enjoying this totally. Five stars.

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Review: The Determined Bachelor by Judith Harkness (1981)

Posted October 28, 2025 by Mary Kingswood in Review / 0 Comments

I enjoyed this up to a point, but I found it by far too wordy, with too little actual plot and too much philosophical wrangling.

Here’s the premise: Anne Calder is the despair of her family, choosing not to marry and thereby getting in the way of her younger sisters’ prospects, and preferring to write novels than look for a husband. Her first novel, based on the country life she knows well, is to be published soon, and she wants to write a follow-up on town life, but how can she, with so little knowledge of it? So she devises a cunning plan – she will take a position as a lowly governess in town, masquerading as the impoverished daughter of a country parson, and gain some experience of town life that way.

Now, this is an excellent start – a governess who actually isn’t a downtrodden and impoverished not-quite-a-lady, and who doesn’t in fact need the job at all. One could quibble at her taking up a position that could be given to someone who actually needs it, and also at the selfishness of worming her way into a child’s affections for what must be only a temporary position, but never mind.

She finds work with Sir Basil Ives, the determined bachelor of the title, a distinguished diplomat and ambassador, who has just become guardian to Nicole, a child of nine, and hasn’t the first clue how to deal with her. At first he thinks his cousins, who have children of their own, might be prevailed on to take her in, but he quickly sees that they’re unsuitable so he engages Anne as a governess. He’s very stiff and, frankly, unlikable, but he has the good sense to realise that Anne knows how to deal with children so he starts to unbend sufficiently to ask her advice.

Nicole is one of those precocious children who would be insufferable in real life, but is made to seem cute on the page, so I’ll let her off that. And Anne is just so very accomplished at… well, absolutely everything, but she’s the heroine, so I suppose I’ll let her off that, too. But Basil… well. We get glimpses of a softer, more relaxed Basil, but we never see him actually fall in love with Anne. If I’m being generous, I’ll concede that it’s all there but written between the lines, but it’s written in such small letters that it’s almost impossible to see. So when, most of the way through the book, he finally reveals his feelings, it’s a case of about time, too!

I never did quite work out his family relationships. There’s some suggestion that he’s in line to inherit his cousin’s earldom through his mother, but that’s unlikely (without a bit more explanation) so I ignored it. And then at the end, he does inherit, even though the cousin had sons, which made no sense to me at all, so I ignored that, too. But in a book of this vintage, ie pre-internet, I forgive a certain amount of fudging of historical details.

I did manage to read this to the end, if only to see how stiff old Sir Basil finally unbends, but I can’t say I enjoyed it very much. The interactions between hero and heroine tended to be of a high-flown philosophical nature, with absolutely nothing romantic about them, and the heroine’s inner musings were not much better. Besides that, very little happened apart from one misunderstanding near the end, although it was an understandable misunderstanding, if you see what I mean, and therefore forgivable. It is very well written, however, with only a smattering of Americanisms and other oddities, so I’ve given it three stars.

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Review: Madcap Miss by Joan Smith (1989)

Posted October 28, 2025 by Mary Kingswood in Review / 0 Comments

This was a whole heap of fun! I despise plots where the heroine disguises herself as a boy, but this one masquerades as a child, leading to all sorts of entertaining results, like being given warm milk to drink instead of wine, and being expected to play with skipping ropes and dolls! A very original story.

Here’s the premise: Grace Farnsworth, an orphaned lady come down in the world, has lost her job as a governess. Eking out her last pennies to get back to the safety of her former governess’s house, she disguises herself as a child to get a lower fare on the stage coach. She completely fools the coach driver and the two other passengers, a nosy matron and a well-to-do man whose own carriage has broken down. But when Grace arrives, she finds her friend has gone out of town, and she has no money and nowhere to go. Confiding in the sympathetic man from the stage, he makes her an offer: pose as his daughter for a couple of days to fool his elderly grandmother, and he’ll pay her a hundred pounds. Grace agrees, but it turns out to be more difficult than she’d thought.

Quite apart from the milk and dolls problem, there’s Grace’s very adult appetite to contend with, since grandma has very fixed ideas about what young girls should eat. But at least her benefactor, now revealed as an earl (because of course he is!), Lord Whewell (any ideas on pronunciation? No, me neither) is a bit of a charmer, who comes to her room every night and chats easily about this and that, in a perfectly avuncular manner that arouses no alarm in Grace or gentlemanly concern in him.

But gradually, and it really is very, very gradual, they both come to see each other in a different way. I really liked the way this is done, the first hint being the fact that he shaves before dinner on the second night, having discovered that grandma expects Grace to dutifully kiss her papa before bed each evening. That is such a small detail, but it completely sets up the whole process of falling in love. To be honest, I would have liked a little more awareness from him, since he’s not a callow youth but a previously married man, so he should have seen right from the start where his own feelings were heading. But the middle section of the book is very muddled about whether he’s falling in love or just likes her in a fatherly way. As for Grace, she sees him as old (he’s thirty-five to her twenty-two, which isn’t outrageous for the era), so it never occurs to her that he might have marriage in mind.

The second half of the book is a glorious string of improbable encounters with people who know one or other of the two in different ways, which call for some creative story-telling from our hero and heroine so as not to be rumbled, or to have something worse suspected. This is all deliciously funny, and if it takes the hero a couple of attempts to get his proposal right, everything works out fine in the end, naturally, with a resounding finale. Terrific fun. Five stars.

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Review: A Rival Heir by Laura Matthews (2002)

Posted October 28, 2025 by Mary Kingswood in Review / 0 Comments

An oddly disjointed book, which I found difficult to get into, although I’m not sure why. The hero and heroine were perfectly fine, the romance burbled along nicely and there was a great deal of Regency restraint and propriety on display, which is all estimable. Yet somehow I was unmoved.

Here’s the premise: orphaned Nell Armstrong has lived with her cantankerous spinster Aunt Longstreet for ten years, during which time she’s gone nowhere, met no one, done nothing except watch her aunt alienate the neighbours. Now the aunt has decided out of the blue to travel to Bath (from Westmorland!) to take the waters, even though other spas like Harrogate are much closer. Nell is suspicious, but a trip is a trip and she’s determined to make the most of it. At Bath, they meet the aunt’s godson and heir, Sir Hugh Nowlin, and his lively sister Emily, who take Nell under their wing. They both feel sorry for her, living with her difficult aunt, and try to improve her life in their different ways. Hugh would like to improve his own by marrying her, but there’s a problem: he’s broke and he doesn’t know which of them will end up inheriting the aunt’s estate, and if it’s Nell, he can’t possibly court her.

There’s a mystery in the aunt’s history involving recently widowed Lord Westwick, and there’s some minor business with Emily’s husband and a librarian who is set up as a rival for Nell’s affections, but essentially this is the story. I didn’t dislike Hugh or Nell, although they both seem rather too good to be true, what with Hugh agonising over whether he can marry Nell or not, and Nell regarding herself as bound by a deathbed promise years before. As for Lord Westwick, he is a positive fairy godfather, although there might be plot reasons for that. In fact, Aunt Longstreet is the only character who has any kind of bad traits in her makeup at all.

All of this makes the story just a shade dull. I really wanted something melodramatic to happen to shake things up (and it’s not often I say that). In the end, people behave rationally, find logical ways round the constraints that held them back and only the librarian’s story doesn’t get much of a look in at the end. Still, it’s nicely written, if you don’t mind the usual array of Americanisms (gotten and the like), and if it doesn’t have much emotional depth, it’s still a pleasantly enjoyable read. Four stars.

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Review: The Bestowed Bride by Christina Dudley (2025)

Posted October 28, 2025 by Mary Kingswood in Review / 2 Comments

A Christina Dudley book is always a joy to read, that goes without saying, and this one was no different, but it has one major negative about it, which dragged it down to four stars for me.

Here’s the premise: widowed Sarah Barstow still grieves for her dead sailor husband, but at least she has her little son Sebastian (Bash) to console her, and she has a comfortable home with her husband’s family, under the benevolent patronage of their relation, Lord Dere. But when her husband’s best friend, Horace Langworthy, arrives on her doorstep, armed with her husband’s instruction to ensure that Sarah and Bash are well looked after, even to the extent of marrying Sarah, the even tenor of her life is upended. Horace’s proposal is duly made and just as duly rejected with extreme prejudice, even though he’s still heartbroken that the woman he loved and with whom he had an understanding, has jilted him during the two years he was away.

From then on, since Horace decides fr his own reasons to stay in the neighbourhood a bit longer, the two circle warily round each other and begin to appreciate the good qualities in each other. In particular, they both come to understand what it was that the dead Sebastian valued and loved in them. And so they inch towards valuing and loving each other too. I love these slow burn romances, and this is as good as they come.

Of course, the author’s great skill is in depicting large, rambustious families, full of personality and the usual disagreements, but also fiercely loyal, and the Barstows are a classic of the type. This series also has perhaps my favourite of all the characters, the mild-mannered Lord Dere, who meekly allows himself to be manipulated by his redoubtable sister-in-law, but who has a wonderfully soft heart. He acts as the fairy godfather of the series, stepping in to rescue our hapless heroes and heroines when they get into too much of a mess. Here he seems to be more proactive than previously, indulging in a spot of match-making.

As expected from Dudley, the book is beautifully written, laugh out loud funny in parts, and with the usual convoluted muddle to ensnare the main characters, beautifully resolved, and the romance is lovely. So why only four stars? Because with a romance, I expect the hero and heroine to be together at the end, not separated for months and years on end. I can see the logic behind it, it was consistent with the characters themselves and it’s perfectly true to the era, so rationally I can’t fault it, but the irrational part of me ended up rather grumpy about it. So four stars it is.

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Review: The Solicitor’s Wife by Iris Lim (2025)

Posted October 28, 2025 by Mary Kingswood in Review / 0 Comments

A fun little novella, which drew me in by the plot device of an arranged marriage with switched brides. I’m always fascinated by the legalities of Regency marriage so I was keen to see how the author would tackle this.

Here’s the premise: Rupert Iverson is a well-established solicitor who arranges a marriage to a demure, biddable wife. What he doesn’t know is that the proposed wife is in love with someone else (an apothecary’s apprentice – good luck with that!) and so her identical twin sister takes her place, and she’s not at all the biddable sort. Hoyden would be a more apt description. For her part, Ruby Galeheart hasn’t thought much about the marriage beyond saving her sister, so it’s a surprise to discover that her husband is rather an agreeable sort, who doesn’t seem to mind when she creates all sorts of chaos.

Now, this is a wonderful premise for a book, and of course the reader is on tenterhooks wondering what will happen when Rupert realises that he’s been duped. And then there’s the even more intriguing question – is the marriage even legal? Happily, the author doesn’t attempt to whitewash over the consequences, and since Rupert is a solicitor who knows the law, he has no hesitation over the legality or otherwise of the situation, and what needs to be done about it.

The book is too short to have much depth beyond the basic plot, but even so, the characters are not mere cardboard cutouts, and the story is an engaging and amusing read. I have one or two historical quibbles, namely, Rupert would be an attorney at this date, not a solicitor (which was a much more specific and unusual sort of lawyer), and there would only be one wedding ring at the ceremony, not two (husbands didn’t wear wedding rings until well into the twentieth century). None of that mattered much, though. This is a fun little read, short but sweet. Four stars.

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