A Return to Hawthorne House by Kristi Ann Hunter

Two new novellas related to the Hawthornes, under one cover!

Always a Lady: Despite the fact that her daughter is not cooperating, Caroline, Duchess of Riverton is determined to ensure every one of her children marries someone they love as much as she loved their late father. William, the widowered Earl of Blackstone, is delighted to have his days of escorting daughters approaching an end. The last thing he expects is to find himself drawn to a woman who is just starting such a journey. Are they each too set in their ways to grasp this chance to have a second love?

The Lady’s Maid: When Lydia Smith began her career as a parlor maid, she knew love and marriage wasn’t likely in her future. Dreaming about the boy next door as she dusted seemed harmless until he started working as the new valet under the same roof. When Finch needs her help with a special project, will it give them a chance to defy expectations and find love or ruin their happiness forever?

Even though all these stories technically take place before the first full novel of the Hawthorne House series, they are definitely richer for having read the series first. It's a lovely collection for anyone who wants another taste of the wonderful characters we met in the books.

Always a Lady: It's always been clear that Caroline knows all the rules to being a lady, but this story makes it plain she also knows when and how to break them. I enjoyed seeing more of her spunk, and I think Miranda takes after her more than either of them would admit. 

The Lady’s Maid: I always had the feeling in An Uncommon Courtship that there was more to the story of Trent's staff than was included in the book--I mean, a married valet and housemaid is pretty unusual! So this story just makes so much sense and fills in gaps in Lord Trent's unusual household. 

Christy Award winner for best novella/short form in 2023!

Related novels:

Hawthorne House
0.5 "A Lady of Esteem" - a free novella (also included in A Return to Hawthorne House)
1. A Noble Masquerade
2. An Elegant Facade
3. An Uncommon Courtship
4. An Inconvenient Beauty

"Wedding at Sea" by Melissa Tagg - Muir Harbor, book 3

Lilian doesn’t remember anything about her life before the day Maggie Muir found her on her front porch—a toddler, abandoned. She has a beautiful life at Muir Farm, but she also has a secret . . . one that raises just as many questions about her future as it does her unknown past. And, of course, it would be private investigator Wilder Monroe, her brother’s best friend and the bane of her existence, who sniffs out her secret before anyone else. Wilder has spent the past three years trying to close the one case on the mystery of Maggie Muir’s long-lost granddaughter. But the decades-long search has become more tangled than ever. Not only are the Muirs the closest thing to family he has left, but if he can solve this mystery, maybe he'll keep himself from drowning in the one he can’t . . . the truth about his father’s death. In the midst of it all, Maggie asks a favor of both Lilian and Wilder: put aside their bickering and work together to plan her summer wedding. It’s a big ask, made all the more difficult when danger comes calling. But if the two enemies can stand each other long enough to pull off the event of the year, they just might solve a mystery in the process.

This is a rare Melissa Tagg novel in that it lacks the adorable meet cute (not surprising, given that the leads have known each other forever). But it makes up for it in a couple different fun and delightfully awkward scenes. It's full of Tagg's trademark humor, as well as her classic heart-wrenching scenes in which the leads wrestle with their demons and overcome. As with the previous two novels in the series, it even has a spark of suspense and danger.

This is one of the best--albeit, more unusual--enemies to lovers stories I've read. It's not a case of physical attraction instigating the shift from enemies to lovers, as in so many romances; instead, vulnerability leads to connection, which leads to a deeper relationship, which finally culminates in attraction. The physical aspects are way down the list. 

This was the perfect ending to the Muir Harbor series (though I'd gladly take a full novel about Marianna). They are all equally wonderful, but best together! 5 stars!

Muir Harbor
1. Autumn by the Sea
2. A Seaside Wonder
3. Wedding at Sea 

His Delightful Lady Delia by Grace Hitchcock - American Royalty, book 3

Delia Vittoria's mother has lost her voice at last. After five years of being her diva mother's understudy, it is time for Delia to assume her place as the lead soprano on stage behind the Academy of Music's faded velvet curtain. And she is all that stands between the Academy and its greatest threat--the nouveaux riche's lavish new Metropolitan Opera House. Kit Quincy never misses opening night, but when his sister begs him to help get her husband out of an Italian opera star's arms, Kit confronts the wrong Lady Vittoria. When he happens upon the stunning young diva again at Mrs. Astor's dinner the following night, he attempts to make amends and is instead pulled into a plot to win the great opera war. To draw attention to Delia Vittoria as the new soprano star, Kit is convinced to act as both Delia's patron and the enigmatic phantom who once haunted the Academy years ago. But when a second phantom appears, more than Delia's rising career is threatened.

If you enjoy The Phantom of the Opera (or spoofs there-on), this is a fun homage. No weird, stalk-ery relationships between our heroine and hero--just a sweet romance between a singer who knows who she is (at a core identity level, at least) and a gentleman who, even as he is falling in love, wants to see her succeed. Kit is one of the rejected suitors from book one in the series, and it's lovely to see him find love at last. Of the three books, this is definitely my favorite--it's lighthearted and fun, with an unusual opera setting and theme on finding one's identity in Christ.

American Royalty
1. My Dear Miss Dupree
2. Her Darling Mr. Day
3. His Delightful Lady Delia

Fairest of Heart by Karen Witemeyer - Texas Ever After, book 1

Beauty has been nothing but a curse to Penelope Snow. When she becomes a personal maid for a famous actress whose troupe is leaving Chicago to tour the West, she hides her figure beneath shapeless dresses and keeps her head down. But she still manages to attract the wrong attention, leaving her prospects in tatters--and her jealous mistress plotting her demise. After his brother lost his life over a woman, Texas ranger Titus Kingsley has learned to expect the worst from women and is rarely disappointed. So when a young woman found in suspicious circumstances takes up residence with the seven old drovers living at his grandfather's ranch, Titus is determined to keep a close eye on her. With a promotion hanging in the balance, Titus is assigned to investigate a robbery case tied to Penelope's acting troupe. The evidence points to her guilt, but Titus's heart divines a different truth--one that might just get Penelope killed.

I've read a lot of fairy tale retellings, including various versions of Snow White, which, admittedly, is not my favorite fairy tale. For all that there is no magic or supernatural element in this version, it is definitely the best retelling of Snow White that I've read. It pays homage to the Disney version more so than the Grimm original, but the Snow White elements mesh surprisingly well with the very western thievery case, spearheaded by our kingly (as it were) Texas Ranger hero (who gets a lot more character development than the prince in either Disney or Grimm's stories. As does their relationship and romance).

It's plain cute, and highly satisfying--a faith-filled, fairy tale, western, historical romance.

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.

Texas Ever After
1. Fairest of Heart
2. If the Boot Fits
3. Cloaked in Beauty

Memory Lane by Becky Wade - Sons of Scandal, book 1

After surviving a trauma several years back, Remy Reed relocated to a cottage on one of Maine’s most remote islands. She’s arranged her life just the way she wants it. It’s quiet and solitary—until the day she spots something bobbing in the ocean. Her binoculars reveal the “something” to be a man struggling to keep his head above water. She races out to save him and brings him into her home. He’s injured, which doesn’t detract from his handsomeness nor make him any easier to bear. He acts like a duke who’s misplaced his dukedom . . . expensive tastes, lazy charm, bossy ideas. Remy would love nothing more than to return him to his people, but he has no recollection of his life prior to the moment she rescued him. Though she’s not interested in relationships other than the safe ones she’s already established, she begins to realize that he’s coming to depend on her. Who is he? What happened that landed him in the Atlantic Ocean? And why is she drawn to him more and more as time goes by? There’s no way to discover those answers except to walk beside him down memory lane.

This was a great story, full of Wade's trademark humor and romance, along with a dash of intrigue. Based on first impressions, I assumed that our hero is a rich playboy. He is rich (no doubt about it). He's competitive and intense, but he's not a playboy. He surprised me by how very respectful he is of boundaries, and he's much more self-controlled than his first, in-pain and confused impression would lend us to believe. 

No one in this book leads a perfect life; everyone's is messy. Remy is dealing with trauma by hiding out and losing herself in art. Our hero deals with trauma of a different sort. Even side characters like Wendall and Fiona are dealing with the consequences of their life choices, not all of which were great. 

Losing one's memories is an awful thing (I have a cousin who was in a bad car accident 19 years ago and is still missing two months of her life). But I loved how in this book it becomes almost a gift--a gift of time for our mystery man to view his life from an outside perspective instead of drowning in the midst of his circumstances. God takes something awful and uses it for good, not just for his own healing, but for Remy's healing, and even Wendell's, Remy's elderly friend. It doesn't mean that things aren't really hard sometimes, but God is still there through it all and forever afterward.

"God has a soft spot for those of us who feel like we've been thrown onto the garage sale pile . . . He's never closer than when we're beaten up, unloved, betrayed." 

I greatly look forward to Jude's story!

Sons of Scandal
1. Memory Lane
2. Rocky Road

In This Moment by Gabrielle Meyer - Timeless, book 2

Maggie inherited a gift from her time-crossing parents that allows her to live three separate lives in 1861, 1941, and 2001. Each night she goes to sleep in one time period and wakes up in another. Until, that is, she turns twenty-one, when she will have to forfeit two of those lives forever. In 1861, Maggie is the daughter of an influential senator at the outbreak of the Civil War, navigating a capital full of Southern spies and wounded soldiers. In 1941, she is a Navy nurse, grappling with her knowledge of the future when she's asked to join a hospital ship being sent to Pearl Harbor. And in 2001, she's a brilliant young medical student, fulfilling her dream of becoming a surgeon, yet unable to use her modern skills in her other paths. While Maggie has sworn off romance until she makes her final choice, an intriguing man tugs at her heart in each era, and she's drawn to each man in different ways, only complicating the impossible decision she must make, which looms ever closer. With so much on the line, how can Maggie choose just one life to keep and the rest to lose?

This is sort of a fantasy version of a dual timeline novel, in which the heroine exists in three timelines all at once. It has the distinct advantage over other dual timeline books by having the same main character in all three timelines, rather than different characters experiencing different stories. Often in dual timelines, one timeline is more interesting than the other, and I wish that the book could just be about that one. Not so with this book: while I was less interested in her 2001 timeline, her choices and events that occurred still had a major impact on her and her other timelines. As much as she tried not let it inform her choices, the knowledge and skills she gains from 2001 still affect her decisions in 1941 and 1861.

The stakes felt a little lower in this book than previous one, for all that Maggie is living through the start of essentially three wars. It's more her personal journey of deciding what is right for her; the decision isn't forced in the same way as her mother's in the previous book. Still, it's a highly enjoyable story, and I look forward to the next in 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.

Timeless
1. When the Day Comes
2. In This Moment

Engaging Deception by Regina Jennings - Joplin Chronicles, book 3

Olive Kentworth has spent her life hiding her interest in architecture, even though she pores over architectural books and sketches buildings. When she accepts a job on a home expansion, it's only because her cousin Amos agrees to pose as the builder. To further hide her involvement, Olive takes a position as a nanny--not knowing that she'll be working for her idol, Joplin's leading architect, widower Maxfield Scott. Maxfield is intrigued by his new nanny--she makes his home and his life bearable again. His work, on the other hand, is a disaster. An untrained builder is remodeling a completed project of his. What's worse, Maxfield's current client wants changes to his plans because of that builder's work. As the architectural one-upmanship heats up, Olive's involvement becomes harder to hide. Will the relationship between her and Maxfield survive, or will they both miss out on building something for their future?

Ever feel like some has borrowed your life and put in fiction form? Olive (an architect) and I (an artist) share a lot of the same traits. A LOT. There's the conflicting fear and desire to be known; the fear of failure, which can be debilitating, right along side the stress of success, which is almost worse (at least when you fail, you can crawl back into hiding). Olive faces the imposter syndrome of one who hasn't gone to school for one's job (me again). And like Olive, I've even used relatives as a face man to handle the talking. And we each might be practical and a wee bit stubborn.

Suffice to say, I really connected with the character.

But besides that, it's just a really good story. It's largely a love story between two people dealing with grief in opposite ways, yet that grief allows them to connect on a deeper and more sincere level than they can find elsewhere. Maxwell, even with his snobbish faults, is an appealing hero. I even kind of liked Ruby, Maxwell's initial love interest who's doomed to be kicked to the curb. Usually when there's The Other Woman involved, she's pretty awful, even if the hero doesn't see it at first. Ruby is definitely not a good fit, but she isn't awful; she's actually pretty great with the kids, but she's immature yet, and neither her heart nor her ambitions are centered on Maxwell.

All in all, it was an excellent conclusion to the Joplin Chronicles.

Joplin Chronicles
1. Courting Misfortune
2. Proposing Mischief
3. Engaging Deception