Review: Well written, but the H and h disappointed.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 08 19, 2013
It was a pleasure to read a recently written Kindle "clean" Regency romance with such competent writing and so few errors.  (The only thing that annoyed me was the author's use of "discrete" several times when she obviously meant "discreet".)  The story flowed well and was enjoyable, although it contained nothing new as far as romance plot points go.Heroine Katherine is the only one left in her immediate family after the recent death of her baronet brother Richard, killed during the Napoleonic Wars.  Now the baronetcy goes to her second cousin Clive, whom she jilted two years ago after catching him "in flagrante" with a housemaid just days before their wedding. So she and her aunt have moved to the Dower house of Lord Cecil Dracott, the baron living nearby, since living with Clive and his sister would be awkward and not quite the thing.Well, the baron dies and when his son and heir Harry comes back from the war, Katherine worries about her status at the Dower house.  Add to this a little Spanish boy who is delivered to her care and who is supposedly her brother's child.  Now she has even more responsibilities with little money to carry them out.  A sensible lady would marry so that her husband could take care of her, her aunt and her nephew.We have a romantic "quadrangle" involving Katherine and 3 possible suitors, her cousin Clive, the baron Harry, and the neighborhood vicar.  Thrown into the mix is the question of the legitimacy of the nephew, Harry's troubled past, and just how the vicar is involved in Harry's past.But, though the writing is much better than average, the romance does not convince, Harry's past and his present wish to avoid love in marriage are a big cliche, and a lot of Katherine's actions in the book are quite annoying.  I was expecting more from the story but romantic chemistry was low (and, no, this doesn't mean a lack of sex; it means a lack of romance and sexual tension) and the plot was quite ordinary and did not live up to its promise.  I had also expected more complications involving Clive and Richard's little son but that turned out to be a non-event.However, if this is a debut work, the author shows a lot of promise and could write a very good book if she would break out of the box of overworked plots and romantic cliches.