Review: Enjoyable Regency romance debut novel
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 11, 2012
Since birth, Woodmoor Castle has been the only home twenty-two year old Elizabeth Hunter has ever known. After the passing of her parents, Elizabeth has followed in her father's footsteps and become the stable master. In her job, she's aided by her unique ability to understand and communicate with horses. Her greatest desire is to breed and train a colt that can win the most prestigious competition in all of England - the Guineas Two Thousand. While she focuses on that task alone, she's wholly unprepared for the return of the prodigal son, Lord Taylor. She hasn't seen him in eight years, and if she had her way, she would prefer to avoid him altogether. She remembers him as a boy, who loved to tease and torment her. Once he was of age, a falling out with his father led Lord Taylor to leave Woodmoor and settle in London, where he was best known as a rake. But now he's back to talk to his father about his inheritance. After all, one day Woodmoor Castle and all it's employees will fall to him, including Elizabeth. It wouldn't be a problem, but she's no longer the little girl he used to love to tease. She's blossomed into a beautiful woman, but she still has that fiery temperament that he liked so much. Given their different stations, a relationship between them would be impossible, if not forbidden.For Evangeline Neal's first book, this was a very enjoyable read. Set in England during the early 1800s, Elizabeth didn't seem to conform to society's expectations. She was more of a tomboy rather than a lady. She traded gowns for riding gear and preferred to ride like a man rather than sidesaddle. Despite her lack of experience with the social whirlwind of the big city, she radiated a sense of independence and maturity. There were only two things that mattered to her in life - books and horses. So when Lord Taylor showed up, the effect he had on her was both funny and endearing. For a twenty-two year old virgin, she wasn't completely naive about the dangers of being "compromised" by a man, especially one that couldn't possibly promise his hand in marriage. The fact that they had known each other since childhood, and Lord Taylor looked up to Elizabeth's father and adored her mother made the situation a little more believable when she began to see him as the man and not the boy. Was he a little overbearing, yes, but thanks to the dual POVs of both the H/h, the glimpses into his thoughts made it easy to determine his sincerity and his dilemmas.If there was one thing that bothered me, it was Elizabeth allowing Lord Taylor to hurt her feelings over and over again. I understood his struggles, but I did feel that he could have thrown her a bone before she left Woodmoor to head to the race. Throw the poor girl a bone! While he tried to sort out his life on his end, Elizabeth goes after her dream with fierce determination. While she admits that her plan may have been a little flawed, I admired her tenacity. This was the perfect book to curl up with along with a glass of wine. You may have to suspend your belief in a few scenes, but the story did flow nicely. Just the right amount of heart, drama and sex. As for Lord Taylor, he acted like a cad on a few occasions, but he was still a whole lot of sexy. I can see why Elizabeth couldn't seem to give up on him.On a final note, some reviews for this book have been less than stellar, and the cited reasons were because of a bounty of grammar and spelling mistakes. When Ms Neal first approached me and asked if I would read her book in exchange for a fair review, I happily agreed. The first version I received  was indeed not edited; that much was evident from page one. However, the author took it upon herself to contact me multiple times, first to apologize, and she sent me an edited version.  (She even put up with my ineptitude to replace the old version on my new Kindle). I still found a mistake here and there, but nothing detrimental, and nothing she can't fix.