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Yours to Command
Imagine what a shock it was for Sydney to discover that the newly appointed Headmaster of the boys' school at which she was matron was none other than her ex-fiancé, Hugh Lulworth, whom she had not been able to forget!
Tormented by her love for Hugh, it was no wonder that she sought comfort in the warm sympathetic understanding of Lucas Manning, the famous actor. She was enjoying her work and was romantically entwined with Lucas, whose two young wards were in her care.
Would Hugh's arrival change her whole life again?
Tormented by her love for Hugh, it was no wonder that she sought comfort in the warm sympathetic understanding of Lucas Manning, the famous actor. She was enjoying her work and was romantically entwined with Lucas, whose two young wards were in her care.
Would Hugh's arrival change her whole life again?
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1955
About the author
Mary Burchell
167 books85 followersIda Cook was born on 1904 at 37 Croft Avenue, Sunderland, England. With her eldest sister Mary Louise Cook (1901), she attending the Duchess' School in Alnwick. Later the sisters took civil service jobs in London, and developed a passionate interest in opera. The sisters helped 29 jews to escape from the Nazis, funded mainly by Ida's writing. In 1965, the Cook sisters were honored as Righteous Gentiles by the Yad Vashem Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Authority in Israel.
As Mary Burchell, she published more than 125 romance novels by Mills & Boon since 1936. She also wrote some western novels as James Keene in collaboration with the author Will Cook (aka Frank Peace). In 1950, Ida Cook wrote her autobiography: "We followed our stars". She helped to found the Romantic Novelists' Association, and was its president from 1966 to her death on December 22, 1986.
As Mary Burchell, she published more than 125 romance novels by Mills & Boon since 1936. She also wrote some western novels as James Keene in collaboration with the author Will Cook (aka Frank Peace). In 1950, Ida Cook wrote her autobiography: "We followed our stars". She helped to found the Romantic Novelists' Association, and was its president from 1966 to her death on December 22, 1986.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 14, 2022
Sydney is a good family girl. Gave up her marriage plans because her dad and younger brothers were in need of her support. The spurned fiance is the OM. 6 months later, daddy remarries, so Sydney is a free bird, free to pursue her career, her dreams.
She lands a prim and proper job as the matron of a residential boys school. Some cute kids, and cute banter in the story.
So who's the hero then? Lucas Manning, a popular playright, a regular face in many of Mary Burchell's tales, as a guest character. This story is about his own HEA. Lucas has 2 nephews in Sydney's school.
Now, bring in a whole lot of twists and turns in the story aided by convenient coincidences. That's Mary Burchell for you.
OM comes to the school as the new head master. He has his own new fiance in tow. The OW is the mother of hero's nephews, she also lands in the school by chance. That's enough fodder for 7-8 chapters.
After tangling the leads in their respective jealousy tropes, the author sorts out everything in the end. With a nice HEA confession. But just like in many Mary Burchell books, even here , the heroine spends an inordinate amount of time making declarations of love for the OM !!! Then suddenly gets a brainwave about the poor hero in waiting.
Good, racy read with dramatic story telling. And a lovely , almost poetic use of the English language. I love her, Mary Burchell...
She lands a prim and proper job as the matron of a residential boys school. Some cute kids, and cute banter in the story.
So who's the hero then? Lucas Manning, a popular playright, a regular face in many of Mary Burchell's tales, as a guest character. This story is about his own HEA. Lucas has 2 nephews in Sydney's school.
Now, bring in a whole lot of twists and turns in the story aided by convenient coincidences. That's Mary Burchell for you.
OM comes to the school as the new head master. He has his own new fiance in tow. The OW is the mother of hero's nephews, she also lands in the school by chance. That's enough fodder for 7-8 chapters.
After tangling the leads in their respective jealousy tropes, the author sorts out everything in the end. With a nice HEA confession. But just like in many Mary Burchell books, even here , the heroine spends an inordinate amount of time making declarations of love for the OM !!! Then suddenly gets a brainwave about the poor hero in waiting.
Good, racy read with dramatic story telling. And a lovely , almost poetic use of the English language. I love her, Mary Burchell...
June 24, 2019
I really enjoyed this one. Sydney has a spine and stands up to not one, but two, OW (OWs?). Even the last minute Big Mis isn’t completely stupid and Lucas’ explanation for his behavior is a bit...flimsy.
August 27, 2022
This was disappointing for a Mary Burchell book. For more than 80% of the book she was still in love with her old fiancé who dumped her because she wouldn't abandon her family after her mom died. He didn't deserve the lack of bitterness she had toward him throughout their reunion. It was kind of nice to not know which guy would be the H.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 17, 2013
Not one of my favorite Mary Burchell books, but still enjoyed it. There was more focus on domestic things rather than the romance between the main characters. I also lost patience with the heroine for taking so long to figure out what was so obvious!
June 23, 2018
Entertaining and angst-free, with some nice Burchell touches. Reader beware: Burchell's entertainers contain strong superficial streaks, which can be offputting, and the H has more than a little of that. Ultimately, though, he's a good guy and he's definitely in love with the h.
July 27, 2026
4 stars
I enjoyed Yours to Command overall. It is very well written, never boring, and compelling enough that I read it straight through. The ending is sweet and satisfying, and Lucas and Sydney are believable as two people who fit comfortably together.
However, the romance is much lighter than I prefer. For most of the book, Lucas and Sydney are essentially friends. Even at the eighty-to-ninety per cent mark, Sydney still believes she is in love with another man.
I do not mind a hero believing he loves another woman, but I dislike this dynamic with a heroine (personalpreference). Sydney only realises near the very end that she has loved Lucas all along. Her revelation makes sense, but it comes too late to provide the romantic progression and heroine pining I enjoy.
The book was involving while I read it, but the central romance was not strong or memorable enough to make me want to reread it.
Sydney works as the matron at a boys’ boarding school. Several years earlier, she was engaged to Hugh.
After her mother’s death, Sydney had become the homemaker for her widowed father and younger brothers. Before marrying Hugh, she arranged for a housekeeper to take her place. Unfortunately, the woman proved completely unsuitable. Sydney asked Hugh to postpone the wedding until she could find another solution. He refused to wait and demanded that she choose between him and her family. Sydney could not abandon them, so the engagement ended.
She remained heartbroken. Six months later, her father remarried a lovely woman who could care for the household. Sydney then felt that she and Hugh had sacrificed their future for nothing.
Years later, she is horrified to learn that Hugh will shortly arrive as the school’s new headmaster.
Before Hugh appears, Sydney meets Lucas Manning, a famous stage actor and theatre manager. His two nephews, who are also his wards, are new pupils at the school.
Sydney quickly becomes fond of the boys. She and Lucas also find it unusually easy to talk to one another, despite being strangers. Lucas asks her to watch over his nephews. Sydney confides that the new headmaster is her former fiancé and that she is anxious about seeing him again. Lucas encourages her to keep in touch, both about the boys and about what happens with Hugh.
Their immediate friendliness gives Sydney a small boost to her confidence. Lucas is a famous and important man, yet he clearly enjoys talking to her.
She particularly needs that reassurance when Hugh arrives and she discovers that he is engaged to Marcia, one of Sydney’s former friends. Sydney had privately hoped that fate had brought Hugh back into her life so they could revive their romance. Learning about Marcia leaves her shocked and humiliated.
The novel then follows both Sydney’s situation with Hugh and her growing friendship with Lucas.
Hugh and Marcia’s engagement is new, and Marcia feels threatened by Sydney’s presence at the school. She tries to pressure Sydney into leaving. Hugh behaves more considerately. He advises Sydney not to resign impulsively and treats her with respect. Sydney remains convinced that she loves him.
Meanwhile, she continues seeing Lucas when he visits his nephews or when she travels to London. She confides in him, and he points out that Hugh behaves like a man who may still love her and has tried to settle for second best with Marcia.
Ironically, Lucas is the person who keeps Sydney’s hopes about Hugh alive at first.
Sydney and Lucas are also brought closer by the complicated situation surrounding his nephews. Lucas’s brother had custody of the boys because their mother, Anne, abandoned them and went to America with another man. After his brother died, Lucas took responsibility for them and provided a stable home.
Anne now returns to England. She does not appear to want the children, but she is bitter and spiteful enough to threaten Lucas with a custody dispute. Lucas fears the effect this will have on the boys. Since Anne is their mother, he may not have the legal right to prevent her from visiting them at school.
The history is made more painful because Lucas once loved Anne himself.
At that time, Lucas was not yet a successful actor. Anne rejected him for his wealthier brother. Their marriage was unhappy, and she apparently tried to play the brothers against one another. She later left her husband for a richer man in America and abandoned her children.
Lucas has long since recognised that Anne is shallow and treacherous, but he once loved her deeply, and the experience wounded him. He even wonders if he might still love her and take her back.
The situation becomes even more complicated because Anne has a teenage brother at the same school. The boy does not know that Lucas’s nephews are also his own nephews. Anne initially visits the school to see her brother without realising that her sons are there.
Because Sydney is the matron, she is well placed to protect the boys and warn Lucas if Anne causes trouble. The situation gives Sydney and Lucas many reasons to meet and confide in one another.
They become each other’s advisers and emotional support. Although they do not know one another well at first, they naturally discuss personal subjects, listen without judgement and try to give each other sensible advice.
SPOILERS
They are seen together often enough that other people begin to assume they are romantically involved.
Eventually, Lucas proposes.
Anne has suggested that a bachelor is not a suitable guardian for the boys. She also appears to be manoeuvring herself towards Lucas now that he is rich and successful.
Lucas says he needs a respectable wife who would be a good mother to his nephews. Sydney already loves the boys, they care for her, and he respects and likes her as a friend.
Sydney immediately refuses. She cannot marry him for such practical reasons when she still believes she loves Hugh—and Lucas knows it.
The various romantic and family complications continue to move back and forth. They remain interesting because they are tied directly to Lucas’s life and the welfare of his nephews. The boys are charming, especially the sweet and funny younger child, to whom Sydney becomes particularly attached.
My frustration was that Sydney remained unaware of any deeper feelings for Lucas for nearly the entire book.
Hugh eventually ends his engagement after recognising that Marcia is not the right woman for him. Sydney assumes he must have done so because he still loves her. She waits for him to declare himself.
This is still happening at around the eighty-to-ninety per cent mark. By then, I wanted Sydney to have recognised her love for Lucas and spent some time pining for him. That romantic progression never occurs.
Sydney finally understands her feelings when she sees Lucas saying goodbye to Anne at the school.
Anne puts her arms around his shoulders, and Lucas kisses her. It is a genuine-looking kiss, although Lucas is really performing for Anne as part of their farewell now that she has decided she cannot cope with the boys and is leaving again.
Sydney does not know that. She remembers Lucas once admitting that he sometimes wondered whether he might still love Anne. She becomes horrified that he may now marry Anne and restore her as the boys’ mother.
The force of Sydney’s jealousy shocks her into recognising that she loves Lucas, not Hugh.
Her revelation is convincing. Sydney had remained trapped in her old ideas about Hugh and the life they might have shared. Seeing Lucas apparently choose another woman finally forces her to understand what she truly feels.
However, I still wish this had happened much earlier.
Hugh then proposes, but his proposal is disappointingly practical. Sydney feels that his logic, career and other priorities come before his feelings for her. Now that she understands the strength of her love for Lucas, she knows Hugh is no longer the right man and refuses him.
I usually prefer more drama at the end. I expected Sydney to withdraw from Lucas or reject him because she was hurt and angry about his kiss with Anne.
Instead, the resolution follows quickly.
Sydney and Lucas talk, and she admits how she feels. He is relieved because he has wanted her for some time. Whenever he tried to draw closer, however, Sydney praised Hugh and made her continuing devotion to him clear.
Lucas therefore believed she loved Hugh. He had even advised her about that relationship and suppressed his own feelings because he thought Hugh was the man she wanted.
Sydney reminds him that his proposal only mentioned needing a mother for the boys. He never said that he loved her. Lucas finally tells her that he does, she confesses her love in return, and they agree to marry.
Lucas is charming in the final scene, and I could believe that these two would suit one another. They have become close friends, confided in each other and provided steady emotional support. He has also behaved generously by putting Sydney’s supposed happiness with Hugh before his own wishes.
Even so, I remain uncertain about the romantic balance of their future.
It is easy to see what Sydney brings to Lucas’s life. She will become a loving mother to his nephews and provide sweetness, stability and kindness for the entire family. He values her calming influence, and she fills the lonely space left by his brother’s death and Anne’s betrayal.
Lucas’s emotional wound is clear. He fears losing the boys to a woman who once rejected him for his brother and later proved shallow and treacherous. Sydney offers him and his nephews the secure, loving family they have lacked.
What Sydney receives is less clear.
She has already spent much of her life caring for her father and brothers after her mother’s death. Now she will devote herself to being a wife and mother within another ready-made family.
Lucas is wealthy, successful and socially confident, but I did not gain a strong sense of how he meets Sydney’s own emotional needs or fills a gap in her life. Her only obvious wound is having been rejected by Hugh and remaining attached to that lost relationship. That is not enough to create a deep romantic arc for her.
Lucas is also very much a sophisticated man about town. He can convincingly kiss Anne as part of an act, which left me wondering how devoted and dependable he will be as Sydney’s husband.
He has certainly been a good friend. He listens to her, helps her understand Hugh and sacrifices his own hopes when he believes she loves someone else. But the novel does not fully prove that friendship has become a deeply romantic partnership.
There are few moments in which Lucas makes Sydney feel special. He does not quietly watch over her, notice her private insecurities or give her small things and experiences she has never had before. The relationship mainly consists of meetings, lunches and conversations about the difficulties in their separate lives.
I prefer romances that show the couple doing meaningful things for one another even while the conflict remains high. Those small acts of attention make the hero’s interest feel personal and romantic.
That element is largely missing here.
Overall, Yours to Command is a well-written, engaging and enjoyable book. I read it compulsively, liked the characters and found the ending sweet. Lucas and Sydney have a convincing friendship and could certainly build a pleasant life together.
However, Sydney believes she loves Hugh for far too long, her feelings for Lucas emerge too late, and the story never gives the central couple enough romantic development. I could see clearly what Sydney would add to Lucas’s life, but not what he uniquely gives her in return.
It was a good book, but not a strong enough romance for me to find it truly memorable or want to reread it.
I enjoyed Yours to Command overall. It is very well written, never boring, and compelling enough that I read it straight through. The ending is sweet and satisfying, and Lucas and Sydney are believable as two people who fit comfortably together.
However, the romance is much lighter than I prefer. For most of the book, Lucas and Sydney are essentially friends. Even at the eighty-to-ninety per cent mark, Sydney still believes she is in love with another man.
I do not mind a hero believing he loves another woman, but I dislike this dynamic with a heroine (personalpreference). Sydney only realises near the very end that she has loved Lucas all along. Her revelation makes sense, but it comes too late to provide the romantic progression and heroine pining I enjoy.
The book was involving while I read it, but the central romance was not strong or memorable enough to make me want to reread it.
Sydney works as the matron at a boys’ boarding school. Several years earlier, she was engaged to Hugh.
After her mother’s death, Sydney had become the homemaker for her widowed father and younger brothers. Before marrying Hugh, she arranged for a housekeeper to take her place. Unfortunately, the woman proved completely unsuitable. Sydney asked Hugh to postpone the wedding until she could find another solution. He refused to wait and demanded that she choose between him and her family. Sydney could not abandon them, so the engagement ended.
She remained heartbroken. Six months later, her father remarried a lovely woman who could care for the household. Sydney then felt that she and Hugh had sacrificed their future for nothing.
Years later, she is horrified to learn that Hugh will shortly arrive as the school’s new headmaster.
Before Hugh appears, Sydney meets Lucas Manning, a famous stage actor and theatre manager. His two nephews, who are also his wards, are new pupils at the school.
Sydney quickly becomes fond of the boys. She and Lucas also find it unusually easy to talk to one another, despite being strangers. Lucas asks her to watch over his nephews. Sydney confides that the new headmaster is her former fiancé and that she is anxious about seeing him again. Lucas encourages her to keep in touch, both about the boys and about what happens with Hugh.
Their immediate friendliness gives Sydney a small boost to her confidence. Lucas is a famous and important man, yet he clearly enjoys talking to her.
She particularly needs that reassurance when Hugh arrives and she discovers that he is engaged to Marcia, one of Sydney’s former friends. Sydney had privately hoped that fate had brought Hugh back into her life so they could revive their romance. Learning about Marcia leaves her shocked and humiliated.
The novel then follows both Sydney’s situation with Hugh and her growing friendship with Lucas.
Hugh and Marcia’s engagement is new, and Marcia feels threatened by Sydney’s presence at the school. She tries to pressure Sydney into leaving. Hugh behaves more considerately. He advises Sydney not to resign impulsively and treats her with respect. Sydney remains convinced that she loves him.
Meanwhile, she continues seeing Lucas when he visits his nephews or when she travels to London. She confides in him, and he points out that Hugh behaves like a man who may still love her and has tried to settle for second best with Marcia.
Ironically, Lucas is the person who keeps Sydney’s hopes about Hugh alive at first.
Sydney and Lucas are also brought closer by the complicated situation surrounding his nephews. Lucas’s brother had custody of the boys because their mother, Anne, abandoned them and went to America with another man. After his brother died, Lucas took responsibility for them and provided a stable home.
Anne now returns to England. She does not appear to want the children, but she is bitter and spiteful enough to threaten Lucas with a custody dispute. Lucas fears the effect this will have on the boys. Since Anne is their mother, he may not have the legal right to prevent her from visiting them at school.
The history is made more painful because Lucas once loved Anne himself.
At that time, Lucas was not yet a successful actor. Anne rejected him for his wealthier brother. Their marriage was unhappy, and she apparently tried to play the brothers against one another. She later left her husband for a richer man in America and abandoned her children.
Lucas has long since recognised that Anne is shallow and treacherous, but he once loved her deeply, and the experience wounded him. He even wonders if he might still love her and take her back.
The situation becomes even more complicated because Anne has a teenage brother at the same school. The boy does not know that Lucas’s nephews are also his own nephews. Anne initially visits the school to see her brother without realising that her sons are there.
Because Sydney is the matron, she is well placed to protect the boys and warn Lucas if Anne causes trouble. The situation gives Sydney and Lucas many reasons to meet and confide in one another.
They become each other’s advisers and emotional support. Although they do not know one another well at first, they naturally discuss personal subjects, listen without judgement and try to give each other sensible advice.
SPOILERS
They are seen together often enough that other people begin to assume they are romantically involved.
Eventually, Lucas proposes.
Anne has suggested that a bachelor is not a suitable guardian for the boys. She also appears to be manoeuvring herself towards Lucas now that he is rich and successful.
Lucas says he needs a respectable wife who would be a good mother to his nephews. Sydney already loves the boys, they care for her, and he respects and likes her as a friend.
Sydney immediately refuses. She cannot marry him for such practical reasons when she still believes she loves Hugh—and Lucas knows it.
The various romantic and family complications continue to move back and forth. They remain interesting because they are tied directly to Lucas’s life and the welfare of his nephews. The boys are charming, especially the sweet and funny younger child, to whom Sydney becomes particularly attached.
My frustration was that Sydney remained unaware of any deeper feelings for Lucas for nearly the entire book.
Hugh eventually ends his engagement after recognising that Marcia is not the right woman for him. Sydney assumes he must have done so because he still loves her. She waits for him to declare himself.
This is still happening at around the eighty-to-ninety per cent mark. By then, I wanted Sydney to have recognised her love for Lucas and spent some time pining for him. That romantic progression never occurs.
Sydney finally understands her feelings when she sees Lucas saying goodbye to Anne at the school.
Anne puts her arms around his shoulders, and Lucas kisses her. It is a genuine-looking kiss, although Lucas is really performing for Anne as part of their farewell now that she has decided she cannot cope with the boys and is leaving again.
Sydney does not know that. She remembers Lucas once admitting that he sometimes wondered whether he might still love Anne. She becomes horrified that he may now marry Anne and restore her as the boys’ mother.
The force of Sydney’s jealousy shocks her into recognising that she loves Lucas, not Hugh.
Her revelation is convincing. Sydney had remained trapped in her old ideas about Hugh and the life they might have shared. Seeing Lucas apparently choose another woman finally forces her to understand what she truly feels.
However, I still wish this had happened much earlier.
Hugh then proposes, but his proposal is disappointingly practical. Sydney feels that his logic, career and other priorities come before his feelings for her. Now that she understands the strength of her love for Lucas, she knows Hugh is no longer the right man and refuses him.
I usually prefer more drama at the end. I expected Sydney to withdraw from Lucas or reject him because she was hurt and angry about his kiss with Anne.
Instead, the resolution follows quickly.
Sydney and Lucas talk, and she admits how she feels. He is relieved because he has wanted her for some time. Whenever he tried to draw closer, however, Sydney praised Hugh and made her continuing devotion to him clear.
Lucas therefore believed she loved Hugh. He had even advised her about that relationship and suppressed his own feelings because he thought Hugh was the man she wanted.
Sydney reminds him that his proposal only mentioned needing a mother for the boys. He never said that he loved her. Lucas finally tells her that he does, she confesses her love in return, and they agree to marry.
Lucas is charming in the final scene, and I could believe that these two would suit one another. They have become close friends, confided in each other and provided steady emotional support. He has also behaved generously by putting Sydney’s supposed happiness with Hugh before his own wishes.
Even so, I remain uncertain about the romantic balance of their future.
It is easy to see what Sydney brings to Lucas’s life. She will become a loving mother to his nephews and provide sweetness, stability and kindness for the entire family. He values her calming influence, and she fills the lonely space left by his brother’s death and Anne’s betrayal.
Lucas’s emotional wound is clear. He fears losing the boys to a woman who once rejected him for his brother and later proved shallow and treacherous. Sydney offers him and his nephews the secure, loving family they have lacked.
What Sydney receives is less clear.
She has already spent much of her life caring for her father and brothers after her mother’s death. Now she will devote herself to being a wife and mother within another ready-made family.
Lucas is wealthy, successful and socially confident, but I did not gain a strong sense of how he meets Sydney’s own emotional needs or fills a gap in her life. Her only obvious wound is having been rejected by Hugh and remaining attached to that lost relationship. That is not enough to create a deep romantic arc for her.
Lucas is also very much a sophisticated man about town. He can convincingly kiss Anne as part of an act, which left me wondering how devoted and dependable he will be as Sydney’s husband.
He has certainly been a good friend. He listens to her, helps her understand Hugh and sacrifices his own hopes when he believes she loves someone else. But the novel does not fully prove that friendship has become a deeply romantic partnership.
There are few moments in which Lucas makes Sydney feel special. He does not quietly watch over her, notice her private insecurities or give her small things and experiences she has never had before. The relationship mainly consists of meetings, lunches and conversations about the difficulties in their separate lives.
I prefer romances that show the couple doing meaningful things for one another even while the conflict remains high. Those small acts of attention make the hero’s interest feel personal and romantic.
That element is largely missing here.
Overall, Yours to Command is a well-written, engaging and enjoyable book. I read it compulsively, liked the characters and found the ending sweet. Lucas and Sydney have a convincing friendship and could certainly build a pleasant life together.
However, Sydney believes she loves Hugh for far too long, her feelings for Lucas emerge too late, and the story never gives the central couple enough romantic development. I could see clearly what Sydney would add to Lucas’s life, but not what he uniquely gives her in return.
It was a good book, but not a strong enough romance for me to find it truly memorable or want to reread it.
June 18, 2025
Sydney is a matron at a boarding school. She had reluctantly broken her engagement with Hugh over some family obligations before taking this job. Suddenly, the new Headmaster of the school arrives, and who is it? Hugh, of course, with his fiancée Marcia. Lucas Manning is the uncle of two boys who just started at the school. He's a famous stage actor in London. The boys' mother Anne comes back into their lives after a long absence. The boys think she is dead. There are some complicated intertwining relationships. Well developed characters.
I loved it! There are so many good books by this author. I had only intended to read two of them, When Love is Blind (Warrender #3) and Song Cycle (Warrender #1), which I read in that order. But by then, the Warrender books interested me. I moved onto others as well.
I couldn't pick a favorite book from all of them, but this is one of my favorites from her non-Warrender and non-Florian books.
This is the second time I've read this book since November.
These are the books which contain characters from Yours to Command:
Yours to Command, 1956
On the Air, 1956 X
Dear Sir, 1958
Dear Trustee, 1958
Edit to add on 3-18-25: I've come back to amend this review to state that I now consider Yours to Command to be a side part of the Florian books, as both Lucas and Florian appear in the next story, On the Air. Without reading Yours to Command, Lucas' small part in On the Air doesn't make the same sense as it does when the reader has already been introduced to his character. And it was an excuse to read this book a third time, as I am reading the Florian books from start to finish, now that I've collected all 6 of the books I know of with Florian as part of its plot. Now to reread On the Air.
Grey-eyed characters: Sydney (heroine) has grey-blue eyes
I loved it! There are so many good books by this author. I had only intended to read two of them, When Love is Blind (Warrender #3) and Song Cycle (Warrender #1), which I read in that order. But by then, the Warrender books interested me. I moved onto others as well.
I couldn't pick a favorite book from all of them, but this is one of my favorites from her non-Warrender and non-Florian books.
This is the second time I've read this book since November.
These are the books which contain characters from Yours to Command:
Yours to Command, 1956
On the Air, 1956 X
Dear Sir, 1958
Dear Trustee, 1958
Edit to add on 3-18-25: I've come back to amend this review to state that I now consider Yours to Command to be a side part of the Florian books, as both Lucas and Florian appear in the next story, On the Air. Without reading Yours to Command, Lucas' small part in On the Air doesn't make the same sense as it does when the reader has already been introduced to his character. And it was an excuse to read this book a third time, as I am reading the Florian books from start to finish, now that I've collected all 6 of the books I know of with Florian as part of its plot. Now to reread On the Air.
Grey-eyed characters: Sydney (heroine) has grey-blue eyes
May 17, 2014
I wanted to read this one because the hero is actor Lucas Manning who is mentioned in a number of other books that touch on the theatre including Dear Trustee in which the hero and heroine go to the theatre and he and his wife are pointed out.
This starts out as one of the fairly typical school based stories of the time. Why don't we have these any more. I can't remember the last hero who was a school teacher though heroine's can still be teachers. The heroine, Sydney, is Matron in an exclusive boys school and on almost the first day back she meets Lucas Manning through his nephews who have just started at the school.
At the time Sydney sees little significance in this, despite liking him and thinking his nephews are adorable. She likes him enough to use him as a confidant over something that is troubling her.
She has just found out that the love of her life, her former fiancé, Hugh, is about to arrive as headmaster of the school after a last minute change. And he isn't married.
Lucas is rather sweet and encouraging but when Hugh arrives, he brings his brand new fiancée, an old friend of them both.
This is not a full of drama story as Sydney deals with the fiancée's animosity, the complications of Lucas and the boys when their mother returns and the daily contact with Hugh.
Over all an enjoyable relaxing read with an interesting cast of characters and some cute interaction with the boys and their school friends.
This starts out as one of the fairly typical school based stories of the time. Why don't we have these any more. I can't remember the last hero who was a school teacher though heroine's can still be teachers. The heroine, Sydney, is Matron in an exclusive boys school and on almost the first day back she meets Lucas Manning through his nephews who have just started at the school.
At the time Sydney sees little significance in this, despite liking him and thinking his nephews are adorable. She likes him enough to use him as a confidant over something that is troubling her.
She has just found out that the love of her life, her former fiancé, Hugh, is about to arrive as headmaster of the school after a last minute change. And he isn't married.
Lucas is rather sweet and encouraging but when Hugh arrives, he brings his brand new fiancée, an old friend of them both.
This is not a full of drama story as Sydney deals with the fiancée's animosity, the complications of Lucas and the boys when their mother returns and the daily contact with Hugh.
Over all an enjoyable relaxing read with an interesting cast of characters and some cute interaction with the boys and their school friends.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews