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Rating: 
Summary: Pretty dire
Review: I found this book very hard going. DesJardien's writing style was not very fluid at all and the book was an awkward read. It also lacked period detail which means this is not a good one to read if you are a true fan of the Regency era. 'The Reluctant Lord' started badly but did pick up. The characters were quite enjoyable though not compelling. It was basically an Ok read though I wouldn't read any more by this author.
Rating: 
Summary: Strains credibility
Review: I gave this book one star for the interesting premise (an American inheriting a title in Britain), and two more for the attempt at an interesting book. Here are the things that strained my credibility:
1) The old lord's mistress is living on his estate... not in the nearby town, but on the estate. Further, she won't marry the old guy when she has the chance.
2) The relationship between the two are supposedly a "secret." C'mon, an unmarried woman living on the estate without a male family member? And THAT's supposed to be a secret in such a small town? Get real!
3) The mistress agrees to let her unmarried neice live with her. All that will do is spread her own infamy to an innocent young woman.
4) The mistress & niece are strapped for money. As part of the estate, the dower house they live in would be regularly supplied with food and fuel from the estate.
5) The mistress is supposedly accepted in the local town's society, and the town matrons invite her to their homes. C'mon, never happen. (At this point in the book, I quit reading and skipped right to the end.)
6) The new lord shows up at his father's funeral, and then asks the niece (whom he only just met) about what he should be wearing. In reality, that subject would have been discussed by the extremely competent valet he inherited from his father, and the matter would have been solved before he ever left the house.
7) The American knows only one person in all of England, and this one person happens to turn up in the same small backwater town that the American is living in. Oh please.Such a promising premise this book had... such mediocre execution. I was disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Strains credibility
Review: I gave this book one star for the interesting premise (an American inheriting a title in Britain), and two more for the attempt at an interesting book. Here are the things that strained my credibility:
1) The old lord's mistress is living on his estate... not in the nearby town, but on the estate. Further, she won't marry the old guy when she has the chance.
2) The relationship between the two are supposedly a "secret." C'mon, an unmarried woman living on the estate without a male family member? And THAT's supposed to be a secret in such a small town? Get real!
3) The mistress agrees to let her unmarried neice live with her. All that will do is spread her own infamy to an innocent young woman.
4) The mistress & niece are strapped for money. As part of the estate, the dower house they live in would be regularly supplied with food and fuel from the estate.
5) The mistress is supposedly accepted in the local town's society, and the town matrons invite her to their homes. C'mon, never happen. (At this point in the book, I quit reading and skipped right to the end.)
6) The new lord shows up at his father's funeral, and then asks the niece (whom he only just met) about what he should be wearing. In reality, that subject would have been discussed by the extremely competent valet he inherited from his father, and the matter would have been solved before he ever left the house.
7) The American knows only one person in all of England, and this one person happens to turn up in the same small backwater town that the American is living in. Oh please. Such a promising premise this book had... such mediocre execution. I was disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Generally enjoyable
Review: [Please, let me start by warning you to take this review with a grain of salt. I couldn't read all of this book because my copy had been mispublished. Double check to make sure that page 161 (and not 129) follows page 160 through page 192. But I will review what I read: the beginning and end.] I enjoyed this book. It was not super great, but it was amusing. The premise of the book is that Fane Westby comes to England to search out the father he thought was dead. Turns out his mother had fled with him when he was a baby and just recently he learned he was the heir apparent to an estate. When he arrives in England, he meets the tenants at the dower house, Miss Marietta Hampton and her delightful aunt, who have both been banished from the rest of the family for being too free-thinking. Enter an evil villian and you have the plot. The characters are very delightful and have some depth, especially the aunt and Fane. The writing is well done and clear. But the plot twists and some of the set-ups are so contrived that you know it could only happen in a novel (Fane only knows one other person in England who happens to be his deadly enemy and this enemy happens to be in the same obscure villiage? ). Also, the plot starts out very, very, very slowly, though it picks up nicely in the pages right before the publisher misprinted it...er, I mean, right in the middle of the book. The ending is, of course, happy and resolved. This book is enjoyable. Just make sure your copy is whole and unblemished prepare to turn off your mind to any attempt at plot reality.
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