Review: delightfully clever historical fiction series
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 28, 2014
If you have a few free hours and want a delightfully clever historical fiction series, let me suggest The Naughty Girls series by Emma Locke. Each of the heroines didn’t run in the higher echelon of society, although none are truly bad or evil. In this, a novella installment and book 3.5 of the series, we meet an innocent who has dreams of marriage to a dashing and handsome earl that she espied in her brother’s smithy.After thoroughly investigating (or so she thought) this handsome earl, she sets a plan in motion to meet him: sure on their acquaintance he will see that they are well-matched. Completely unsuited to deception or discovering possible consequences, Elinor’s sabotaging of her carriage results in an accident that totaled the carriage, shattered a kitchen wall and left her and the driver bruised but not badly injured.And the kitchen she totaled belonged to the earl of her dreams, who is hosting his annual 12 day bacchanalia with other rakes of his ilk, several lightskirts and a healthy dollop of pleasures of the flesh. Grantham is intrigued by Elinor, and finds her quite a refreshing female, and far more pleasant company than the old and jaded friends he entertains.With several twists, the story is light and entertaining, with enough miscommunication and missed signals and several moments of justifiable anger or embarrassment the story trips lightly to conclusion leaving plenty of room for amusement. Utterly appealing and standing alone without a great deal of difficulty, Elinor is merely headstrong and hopeful, not truly naughty, but delightfully nave and open in her approach and honest assessment of her own situation and her reasons for appearing so abruptly.This is a truly clever series that is well grounded in both the historical accuracy and the cleverly wrought characters. I’ve read the first two (I need to get the third full length) and truly enjoyed each one.I received an eArc copy of the title from the publisher via NetGalley for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.