Not the Kind of Earl You Marry by Kate Pembrooke
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
2.5 stars
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
It was the announcement of her betrothal to the Earl of Norwood.
With a storming morning visit that has William, the Earl of Norwood, interrupting their breakfast, Charlotte Hurst and her brother Philip are accused of trying to trap William into marriage. When it becomes clear that Charlotte and her brother are just as shocked as him, William apologizes and realizes a political opponent is probably at fault. To save Charlotte's reputation and William's chance at gaining a political appointment to a committee Liverpool is forming, they agree to enter into a temporary engagement.
This betrothal was only a means to an end---a political appointment for him, an intact reputation for her.
Not the Kind of Earl You Marry, struggled with providing the emotions for a character driven story as it felt pretty plotless. Charlotte and William had never met before they are engaged and they didn't get enough time together to develop and provide a relationship that could carry the story for three hundred plus pages. When they were together, it's an amiable time but Charlotte considers herself a homebody and prefers reading books to the social whirl. She continuously holds the feeling that she would never be good enough or be able to support William enough in his political career. We don't get a lot of insight from William but you can tell he likes spending time with her.
She'd briefly let herself imagine what it might be like if things between them were real.
When I say there wasn't much plot, I mean there wasn't enough there to keep me engaged or following along. The political rival setting-up William to cause a scandal with the betrothal in the newspaper is largely forgotten until around seventy-five percent and then William just confronts the guy and goes to Liverpool with the whole story. Why was William spending three-hundred pages avoiding this? The same with Charlotte's refusal to consider it a real engagement, she doesn't think she'll make a good politician's wife, so much so, she feels this way up to only twenty pages left in the book. However, when William proposes, she just says yes, leaving me to feel like the previous three-hundred pages I read didn't matter because of the lack of development.
Miss Hurst might claim that kiss hadn't changed anything, but he begged to differ.
The majority of the story was dedicated to following the characters around to the hotspots of the romance Regency sub-genre (Gunter's and the like). It seemed to want to be like a traditional Regency and more quiet like a Grace Burrowes (it lacked the emotional heft of a Burrowes). Regency is such an oversaturated sub-genre and perhaps I've read too many, but oof, was there nothing new or fresh here. What was a surprise because of how it felt more towards traditional Regency, was how good I found the late second half sex scene, it gave me the emotion I was looking for between these two and took it's time exploring.
This is a debut and while the technicalities seem to be nailed down, the emotion and heart I look for in romance was missing for me. There was some letter writing between the two that played well, giving us some sweet byplay between them. The political rival plot was mostly forgotten and Charlotte's motivation for not accepting a real engagement between her and William was bemoaned for three-hundred pages to only be up and forgotten at the end. There simply wasn't enough story or emotion for me in this book.
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