Review: A Lovely Love Story
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 11 25, 2013
In this Regency love story that is set in the countryside, instead of London, we meet Lady Lissa, who has just entered society after her year of mourning her father's death, only to be beset by nearly every eligible  bachelor of London's high society, who have all come to her Derbyshire doorstep. Sure that they are more interested in her inheritance than in her, Lady Lissa refuses all suitors. However, Lord Langford is more persistent, claiming suit by fastening a locket around her neck. He tells her that if she does not return the necklace by the end of the summer season, he will know she has accepted his suit.Lissa is not one bit interested in marrying anyone. She prefers spending her time sketching insects and other wildlife along the Dove river, and comes up with a plan to create the illusion that she has had a liaison with her neighbor, the infamous and reclusive Lord Wylde. If she connects her name to a man that polite society has labeled a heartless and cruel man, perhaps the other suitors will tuck tail and run.Of course the plan backfires. If it worked perfectly right away, there would be no story. What neither Lissa or Gabriel Gordon, the Sixth Earl of Wylde, considers is that they could possibly fall in love. Nor does Lissa know just how troublesome Lord Langford is going to be, especially since she is not able to return the necklace in a timely manner.The characters are well-defined and very likeable people. Well, except for Langford. I truly enjoyed them all, including the delightful, gossipy Tilley. Aunt Pru, who loves and supports her niece, and the charming boy, Harry, son of Lord Wylde.Being a nature lover myself, I really enjoyed the scenes by the river and all the details about fly fishing, as Lord Wylde attempts to catch the trout that swallowed the necklace after it fell into the river. The narrative was so well done; it was like the reader could be there with the swarms of insects and hear the rush of the water over rocks. It was in those scenes that the characters really came to life, and of course, the tension between Wylde and Lissa was kept pulled very tightly.For me, there were some problems with the plotting toward the end. I don't want to give anything away, so I can't detail what those problems were, but some incidents and some character behaviors seemed to be forced in order to fit a plot twist. The final resolution, however, was the perfect happy-ever-after, and getting to there from the beginning is an enjoyable read.