![\"\"](\"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/goutet.jpg\")
Well. I\u2019ve enjoyed some of Jennie Goutet\u2019s previous works, but this one I found really lax in a number of ways. The idea was good, but the execution felt lazy, as if she hadn\u2019t really thought too deeply about it, and was just pushing the plot along.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the premise: Lady Eugenia (Geny) Stanich is the daughter of the Earl of Goodwin. It\u2019s a lonely life, for her mother is dead, her father is a distant figure and her young brother is away at school much of the time. She doesn\u2019t much enjoy society life and has few friends among the ton. Her closest friend is a wealthy merchant\u2019s daughter. Her great love is the orphanage her mother started, where she spends a great deal of her time.<\/p>\n
John Aubyn is a bit of a rake and a ne\u2019er-do-well, living a dissolute life until he overhears the Earl of Goodwin (Geny\u2019s father, remember) admitting to wanting to dump some investments because he has insider knowledge that things are going pear-shaped. John feels obliged to relay this information to one of the other investors but is disbelieved and blackballed (thrown out) of the clubs and good society. He sets out to get his revenge by proving that the earl is misusing the funds of the orphanage, and gets himself employed as steward there, under an assumed name.<\/p>\n
Now, this is a great setup. He\u2019s masquerading as something he\u2019s not and when he\u2019s unmasked, as inevitably he will be, she will see him as a person unworthy of trust. And by that time, they will be well on the way to being in love. Of course they will. So the early part of the book is them developing \u2018feelings\u2019 for each other.<\/p>\n
I have to be honest, and confess that this part rang false with me. Geny, after all, is an earl\u2019s daughter, and John, for all his gentlemanlike appearance and manners (and I assume an educated accent, although that\u2019s never mentioned), is a lowly employee, and one below the rank of presumed gentleman. It\u2019s hard to believe that she would ever entertain the possibility of a match between them, even for five minutes. But not only does she do so, she encourages him at every opportunity, seeks out his company and even has no hesitation getting into a closed carriage with him without a chaperon, something that would destroy her reputation at a stroke if it became known (and no, him not being technically a \u2018gentleman\u2019 wouldn\u2019t save her, it makes it worse, if anything).<\/p>\n
The biggest problem with all of this is the practical one – money. How on earth does she imagine they would survive if she married him? She makes a big deal about the fact that she doesn\u2019t need her father\u2019s permission since she\u2019s of age, but she knows perfectly well that he wouldn\u2019t approve and therefore there would be no dowry forthcoming. What\u2019s the salary for a steward at an orphanage? A hundred a year, maybe, if we\u2019re being generous. That wouldn\u2019t even cover the cost of her stockings and gloves. It\u2019s madness. Yet on she goes, allowing herself to be drawn in because she can\u2019t help herself, apparently, and nor can he. Regency restraint? Forget about it.<\/p>\n
Of course, there\u2019s a big explosion when everything comes out into the open, and this part of the book and the wrap-up of the romance is nicely done, and if you like sickly-sweet epilogues, you\u2019ll be very happy.<\/p>\n
There are some errors and oddities that tripped me up. Geny\u2019s brother, the heir to the earldom, is given the courtesy title of Viscount Fernsby, but is inexplicably addressed throughout as Lord Caldwell. He also seems to think he\u2019s a peer of the realm, which he won\u2019t be until he inherits the earldom. Geny\u2019s orphanage is also called an asylum, more usually a place for those considered to be insane. [UPDATE: in the Regency, asylum hadn’t yet acquired its later meaning as a place for the insane, and meant any kind of refuge\/hospital\/place for the outcasts of society.]\u00a0 There are a few grammatical errors, too.<\/p>\n
Fans of Jennie will certainly enjoy this book. I did too, up to a point, but the hero and heroine were a little bit too goody-two-shoes for my taste, and John is the typical Regency rake whose dissolute ways are only briefly seen, after which he is a perfect model of rectitude. My biggest problem is the way Geny fell (quite improbably, in my view) for the hired help, without giving a moment\u2019s thought to the practicalities of marrying a man with a negligible income. This should have been a major hurdle, which he could have overcome at the proposal stage by revealing the estate he owns, but it seems the author never even considered this point. Disappointing. So only three stars from me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well. I\u2019ve enjoyed some of Jennie Goutet\u2019s previous works, but this one I found really lax in a number of ways. The idea was good, but the execution felt lazy, as if she hadn\u2019t really thought too deeply about it, and was just pushing the plot along. Here\u2019s the premise: Lady Eugenia (Geny) Stanich is […]<\/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":[165],"class_list":["post-6049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","tag-goutet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6049","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=6049"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6073,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6049\/revisions\/6073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}