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Oh, the joy of a new Christina Dudley book! Sadly this is the last of the Ellsworth Assortment series, following the romantic adventures of a father who married four times and had the eponymous assortment of children. This features the youngest daughter, Beatrice, the sensitive one of the family, and is a charming wrap-up of the series.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the premise: Beatrice Ellsworth looks to be set for contented spinsterhood. She\u2019s happy not venturing too far from home, helping her older siblings with their growing families and not finding a man to suit her from the limited selection around Winchester. Her family conspire to arrange a trip to the seaside for her, to unfashionable Bognor, in the hope that a change of scene will inspire a change of heart. Their plans succeed beyond their wildest dreams, for on a sea bathing expedition, an accident with the bathing machine leaves Beatrice trapped underwater. Happily, another bather comes to her rescue, and even more happily he turns out to be a handsome and personable young man. The Ellsworths immediately draw him into their sphere and stand back to allow love to develop.<\/p>\n
Which it does, but there\u2019s a teeny, tiny problem – John Clayton, the aforementioned personable young man is already engaged. He\u2019s a canal engineer, and when his mentor in that career died two years before, he left John everything – his business, and his daughter and the fortune she\u2019s inherited. All John has to do is to marry her. At the time, it seemed like a great idea. Now, meeting Beatrice and being instantly smitten, he sees the flaws in the arrangement. But John is an honourable man, so he tells the Ellsworths that he\u2019s engaged, which is just as well, for his betrothed, Priscilla, arrives in Bognor on a surprise visit.<\/p>\n
Beatrice accepts that John is not for her, but she doesn\u2019t have the temperament to shake off her disappointment easily. To distract her from her woes, she\u2019s shipped off to London with a family with a daughter of her own age, who\u2019s been torn from the highly unsuitable arms of a groom, and is also to be distracted by London entertainments (and hopefully find a more suitable husband). Now, Marjorie is a real piece of work, and I\u2019d bet that most of us know someone just like her. She\u2019s either Beatrice\u2019s very, very best friend or her mortal enemy, with no point in between. Everything that goes against Marjorie\u2019s own wishes is Beatrice\u2019s fault, and she\u2019s completely and utterly selfish and irrational. And also very funny, it has to be said. And while she\u2019s busily falling for another swain almost as unsuitable as the groom, Beatrice is struggling to overcome her feelings for John Clayton, who pops up everywhere (even at Almack\u2019s, which I felt was a bit of a stretch, but never mind). He\u2019s trying to drum up investors for his canal, while his betrothed is beginning to realise that he\u2019s just as canal-obsessed as her father ever was.<\/p>\n
The ending brought no surprises at all, but that\u2019s not a criticism. It means that no unRegency-like rabbits were pulled out of hats to get John out of his betrothal. I did want to box his ears, mind you, at that long-drawn-out proposal. There comes a point when explanations can wait and the couple just need to fall into each other\u2019s arms and enjoy a long, toe-tingling kiss. There was one surprise, though – Mr Rotherwood, who wandered onstage from the previous series, a delightful appearance (once I\u2019d worked out who he was and why his story sounded so familiar!).<\/p>\n
This is a quieter book than some of the earlier ones of the series, but that\u2019s entirely in keeping with Beatrice\u2019s quieter nature, so that\u2019s not a criticism either. There\u2019s a smattering of Americanisms but it\u2019s so beautifully written in other ways and I was enjoying the book so much that I didn\u2019t care. In some ways, the previous book, with its stronger emphasis on the glorious Ellsworth family, would have made a more resounding series finale (wouldn\u2019t we all love to be part of a big, rumbustious, affectionate family like the Ellsworths?). Still, this was a wonderful read. A very worthy five stars and I commend the whole series to anyone looking for a literate, intelligent and witty read with a true grasp of the Regency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Oh, the joy of a new Christina Dudley book! Sadly this is the last of the Ellsworth Assortment series, following the romantic adventures of a father who married four times and had the eponymous assortment of children. This features the youngest daughter, Beatrice, the sensitive one of the family, and is a charming wrap-up of […]<\/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-5561","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\/5561","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=5561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5565,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5561\/revisions\/5565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}