Strangers meet, romance blossoms. But there’s a test…A classic fairytale retold.
Good English families all have a house in the country with a deer park, a trout stream, and an army of gardeners. They should have a son and if it can be managed, he should be handsome. Cleverness isn’t important. Daughters in limited quantities are fine so long as they are pretty. Bastards are inconvenient and best ignored. It’s not a big problem, unless you are one. Unfortunately, Sophy is.
Sick of her outcast role, she escapes her father’s house, only to fall from her horse during a spring storm. Injured, soaked, and shivering, she stumbles to a stranger’s door – Tom, a blunt edged merchant from a family of vulgar upstarts. Mistaking Sophy for the genuine article, he takes her in. Sophy can’t resist twisting the truth. Soon she’s caught in her own snare – and it might just be a noose.
Overall, a satisfactory read with some caveats I wanted to read this because the main character is highly atypical for a regency romance. For the most part, I thought this a worthwhile book. A couple things I thought could have been handled better.
Very moving, very refreshing Sophy is the result of a liaison between an aristocrat and a governess, and has been raised by her single mother in a small village. When her mother unexpectedly dies, Sophy, at 10 years of age, becomes acknowledged as her father’s daughter and becomes his “natural daughter.” A good portion of the first half of the book is dedicated to the awkward but viable transition in the family structure this change entails and it is so beautifully written – I had to reread most of it for…
Very nice for the price. (This was a free download for Kindle.) This is a pleasant read, with pleasant, well-drawn characters. No one is 100% good or 100% bad and the story lacks the exaggerated villains or villainesses that one can often find in historical romances.