"The Artful Match" by Jennifer Delamere---London Beginnings, book 3

When Cara Bernay finds herself sacked after nearly losing a child in her care, she travels to London to stay with her sister, only to be sidetracked by a charming artist who finagles her a place to stay and work on her art. Henry Burke, Earl of Morestowe wants his emotionally unstable artist brother home, only to come across Cara as his brother's staunch defender. When it proves that Cara seems to have a good influence on him--and more importantly, Henry's recalcitrant ward--he is willing to overlook her mysterious background and questionable aspirations to invite her to stay with them a few weeks in the country.

Cara is very sweet and naive and especially good with children, but sometimes her impulsive (and frequently foolish) decisions threatened to drive me crazy. Just because things generally turned out all right is no excuse to, for instance, go home with a man she meets that day on the street, even if he appears to be a harmless, impulsive artist. She's a human trafficking statistic waiting to happen. I also didn't understand her reasoning for falling in love until the end when it was explained better--not sure if I missed it initially, or it wasn't explained until then--but it underscored her occasional lack of good sense (how could a penniless orphan suddenly believe she was destined to marry an earl?). But I did appreciate that as mad as she is at her sisters, Cara still clearly loves them--years of love don't turn into hate just because she's angry.

I guess one could call this a comedy of misunderstandings (not that it's particularly humorous, though it is fairly light in tone): a lot of grief and frustration could have been avoided if things had been talked through rather than allowed to fester into misunderstandings. Granted, without them we wouldn't have had a story, as Cara would have sensibly gone to her sister's and Henry and his brother might not have spent years of undeserved animosity. And then Henry and Cara would never have met, and they do actually balance each other out quite well.

It was nice to have resolve to things brought up in the first two books and interesting to catch a glimpse of the late Victorian art scene. I enjoyed seeing the different ways the Victorian era changed life for women throughout the series.

Thank you Bethany House and NetGalley for the complimentary e-book. I was not required to write a positive review, and all opinions are my own.

London Beginnings
1. The Captain's Daughter
2. The Heart's Appeal
3. The Artful Match