Review: Enjoyable Read
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 16, 2013
I really enjoyed this book.  Colin and Sophie are childhood friends who live in London three houses away from each other.  Colin has been in love with Sophie forever, but she sees him only as a friend.The story begins at New Years with Colin determined to win Sophie's hand.  They are to attend a New Year's Day Masquerade ball that evening.  Colin and Sophie spend the evening together at the Masquerade but due to circumstances Sophie does not recognize Colin (he is wearing his friend's very expensive clothes and has a hoarse voice because of a cold).  Sophie is intrigued by this stranger, but in the ensuing weeks finds her feelings towards Colin very confusing.I thought this book was very well written with nice character development.  The story was a bit long I thought.  The author included too many heart to heart scenes between Sophie and her younger sister Rachel.  I mean everytime they had to share anything of consequence we had to go through the same old routine of Sophie trying to keep her patience while she waited for Rachel to "spit it out."My only other complaint is that the author, for unknown reasons, kept highlighting the unfortunate financial circumstances of Colin and Sophie.  They are both from families who, while not poor, are not well off financially.  Sophie has learnt to live with economy, although she longs for the nice gowns and accessories that other ladies can afford.  Colin vows to himself that he will buy all the female fripperies she deserves, but then wonders how he will be able to afford them on a tutor's salary.  They both think to themselves, if only they were wealthy peers (or in Sophie's case, if only she was the daughter of a wealthy peer).That's not to say that Sophie and Colin are mercenary, because neither is in the least bit so, they are merely ordinary people who long to be able to afford better, but I don't know why the author kept alluding to that fact.  Throw in Colin's best friend, John, a wealthy duke, who wore his wealth as easily as he wore his clothes, and Colin making mental note of the differences between himself and John, (there is one instance when he thinks to himself how easily John wore his signet ring, while he Colin had never worn anything of gold) and it just left me feeling a bit unsatisfied by the end of the book.John is a wonderful character, who despite his wealth and position in society, is very down to earth.  He meets Sophie's younger sister at the NY's Ball and becomes enamoured with her and she with him, so there is a bit of angst on the part of those two characters, although the book does not include any of the interactions between them.By the end of the book I just kept thinking to myself, well how is Sophie going to feel once she marries her poor Colin and her sister is a rich, pampered Duchess with all the trappings of wealth?  You see....dissatisfaction!  Don't get me wrong, I don't require that any of the characters in the books I read must be rich, but neither do I like to focus on the lack of wealth, unless it has some significance to the plot.  Here, I think the author could have told us once about the financial circumstances of both the h and H's families and left it at that.  All in all it was a very enjoyable read.  I really liked Sophie and I loved Colin!I would reccomend this book (yes even after all my complaining!)  Oh, FYI, this is a clean romance.  Happy reading!