by Patrice Kindl
Plot Summary:
Seventeen-year-old Althea bears a heavy burden on her slender shoulders. She must support her widowed mother, young brother, and two stepsisters who plead poverty - and she must maintain Crawley Castle, a tumbledown folly designed and built by her great-grandfather. Althea, in short, must marry well. But there are few wealthy suitors - or suitors of any kind - in their small Yorkshire town. Then Lord Boring comes to stay with his aunt and uncle, and Althea immediately starts a clever, stealthy campaign to become Lady Boring. There's only one problem; his cousin and business manager, Mr. Fredericks, keeps getting in the way. And as it turns out, he has his own set of plans...
Review:
This is such a fun, frothy, and charming read! The main character is sometimes too honest so her observations of the other characters are amusing and cuts to the truth - generally though, because there is humor in how she sometimes doesn't get things right. The story is a simple one - with misunderstandings and disagreeable relatives creating most of the drama. The fun is in seeing how Althea uses her wits to get out of the situations she finds herself in.While I enjoyed reading this book thoroughly, I wouldn't say it is anything innovative. It's a lovely romance with familiar character archetypes for the Regency era - spiteful sisters, a loving mother, the different breeds of prospective suitors - a very agreeable, good looking gentleman, an older, slightly repellent man, and a nicer older man. And then there's Mr. Fredericks. He's a different sort of Regency hero - as he's bookish, interested in science and figuring out things, and doesn't have very good manners. His clashes with Althea are cute and endearing, even if he started off as a little too rude in the beginning. There's some wonderful commentary in this book on the place of a woman and what is expected of her versus what a man expects from a bride. There's also a great comparison between Althea and her beauty and her dear, plain friend Miss Vincy with the heart of gold. I think the commentary on the situations the characters are in is more interesting than some of the characters themselves, and that gives this story more depth.
The romance is a little different from romances of this period, but I didn't quite like the resolution. It was very sweet but a little too anemic for me - and not romantic enough. I suppose it fit with the characters and made sense but I felt a little let down by it. Overall though, this is really a charming story, and fun to reread for all the entertaining scenes and characterizations.
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