{"id":4703,"date":"2023-01-21T22:24:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-21T22:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/?p=4703"},"modified":"2023-01-21T22:24:00","modified_gmt":"2023-01-21T22:24:00","slug":"review-the-belle-of-winchester-by-christina-dudley-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/2023\/01\/21\/review-the-belle-of-winchester-by-christina-dudley-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Belle of Winchester by Christina Dudley (2022)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The only thing better than a Christina Dudley book is another Christina Dudley book, and for the first time in my life, I marked the release date of this book in my calendar so I\u2019d remember to download it straight away. I thought Tempted By Folly was superb, but this second book in the series is just as good, lacking only the element of surprise at the endearingly oddball Ellsworth family. With practical Florence safely married off, it\u2019s sparky sister Lily next up, and she\u2019s already decided who she\u2019s going to marry – Mr Gilbert Wright, handsome, rich and dashing. He\u2019s not very bright, but that just means he\u2019ll be easier to manage. But she certainly doesn\u2019t want to tie herself down just yet, because now that Florence is gone and Lily is the Miss Ellsworth and no longer in mourning for their last-but-one stepmother, she\u2019s absolutely ready to have a good time and flirt outrageously and be courted by all the young men of the district.<\/p>\n

Except there\u2019s one who isn\u2019t interested at all. Simon Kenner, the new curate of St Eadburh\u2019s, is as clever as his cousin Gilbert Wright is dim, and sparks immediately fly between him and Lily. For those who like a lot of banter between the romantic leads, this may be right up your alley, because these two are sparring almost from the off. They\u2019re both sharp-tongued, but Simon, at least, is usually more circumspect with his ripostes. He can\u2019t quite understand why Lily Ellsworth somehow brings out the worst in him, horrifying his nice sister, Sophie, and causing him to repeatedly bend his steps towards Hollowgate to apologise to Lily, only to fall into another spat with her. Lily, meanwhile, is very put out to find that the annoying curate is capable of tying her in all sorts of knots, when she\u2019s normally so much in command.<\/p>\n

And now you would probably be thinking – I know how this is going to go, but you\u2019d be wrong. This is a Christina Dudley book, which means that nothing happens quite the way you\u2019d expect. I love the way she gradually ties the characters into more and more tangled knots, only to spring them free at the very last moment with a seemingly impossible twist. I\u2019m not going to spoil the surprise by telling you anything more about it, but both Lily and Simon have to make some adjustments and grow up (yes, and suffer a bit!) before they get to their happy ever after.<\/p>\n

I liked that the new stepmother is sensible enough to offer some wisdom to Lily, unlike some of Mr Ellsworth\u2019s previous choices, and I was happy to see that nice Sophie is too smart to have her heart broken. It was also fun to have a little glimpse into the clerical world of Winchester Cathedral (with its echoes of Barchester Chronicles). A wonderful, intelligent and very funny read, with the inevitable five stars.<\/p>\n

And I absolutely cannot wait to read Minta\u2019s story. Another one to mark on the calendar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The only thing better than a Christina Dudley book is another Christina Dudley book, and for the first time in my life, I marked the release date of this book in my calendar so I\u2019d remember to download it straight away. I thought Tempted By Folly was superb, but this second book in the series […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[187],"class_list":["post-4703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","tag-dudley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4703"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4707,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4703\/revisions\/4707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}