The Lord Next Door

Sisters of Willow Pond #1

by Gayle Callen

The handsome, deceiving lord was not the man Victoria believed him to be...

Victoria must wed...and immediately!

To rescue her family from financial ruin, lovely Victoria Shelby has no choice but to marry. Her options for a bridegroom are limited...until she remembers the shy servant boy next door. Then she discovers that her childhood friend is actually Viscount Thurlow—ruthless businessman, future earl, and a man whose family is shrouded in scandal!

After two rejected marriage proposals, David Thurlow needs a wife who will give him an heir, someone who will not only overlook his past but also be above reproach. Victoria is the ideal candidate—quiet, unassuming, and in desperate need of funds. But even as she strives to be the perfect wife, her calm demeanor masks a shocking secret...one that is overshadowed by David's slow, heated lessons in the art of seduction that threaten to transform a "convenient" marriage into a torrid and passionate affair.

Genres: Historical Romance, Romance, Historical, Historical Fiction, Marriage Of Convenience, Regency, Friends To Lovers

384 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published November 29, 2005

About the author

USA Today Bestselling author Gayle Callen writes historical romances for Avon Books. Her twenty-second novel, The Wrong Bride, was published in November 2015.

Gayle’s novels have won the Holt Medallion, the Laurel Wreath Award, the Booksellers’ Best Award, and finaled in the National Readers Choice Awards. She was a nominee for RT Book Reviews Magazine’s Reviewers’ Choice Award. Her books have been translated into eleven different languages. She also writes the contemporary romances as Emma Cane.

Gayle resides in central New York with her husband. Now that her three children are grown, she has time to read, sing, and delve too deeply into historical research. A past President of the Central New York Romance Writers, she is also a member of Romance Writers of America and Novelists Inc. Visit her website at http://www.gaylecallen.com

Reviews

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little torn on how I feel about this book. It had some things I just loved, but some of it just felt off.
The story is started off with 10 year old Victoria secretly writing to her neighbor, Tom. He found her journal hidden outside, so he began the correspondence by teasing her. He tells her he is the cooks son and they write in this journal back and forth until they are 16. They share all their secrets and get to know each other well although they never actually meet. Her parents have aspirations of her and her 2 sisters marrying into peerage. her family is wealthy but are not nobility, her father is a banker and they are not accepted in society. Victoria is shy and does not wish to mingle in society or marry.
When her father commits suicide and leaves the family in financial ruins, she and her sisters do what they must to survive. The sisters find governess and companion situations while Victoria stays home to care for her Mother. She decides to go next door to seek out Tom to see if he will marry her. ( This part made no sense to me, he was a cooks son so how could he financially help her?) She finds out that Tom is actually a Viscount and his name is David Thurlow.
David wants no part of the ton as they have scorned him over scandals that were all his fathers doing. He is a business man heavily involved with the rail roads and tries to be perfect without scandal to help clear his family name. He was turned down by two peers that he wanted to marry, yet still wishes to marry as he needs someone to run the house and provide an heir. He decides to marry Victoria to benefit both of them.
So yes, they marry. After the journal entries and then Victoria finding out who he actually is, well it just gets pretty boring. For the whole middle of the book, every-night he goes to her and will kiss her, they slowly go just a bit farther even though in their thoughts they both wanted to ravish each other... It wasn't even sexual tension cause the next day they were just cold but more towards civil to each other. booooring yawn..
The last third of the book, she gets all social for his sake and starts pushing him into social events and she becomes like the belle of the ball, even though she is shy and hates this stuff, it was confusing that she just switched like that.
The story wasn't bad, it just wasn't all that entertaining. I will try the next and see if the series gets better.

[Missy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Slow-burn romance. I almost DNF’d but I must have been in the mood for it since I finished it. The heroine was a good wife, trying to mend the relationship between the hero and his father and trying to convince him that he needs to attend social events to further his political career. The hero could have been a better husband. He kept too many things from her, sometimes intentionally, other times, unintentionally. I liked that he agreed to wait for her to be more comfortable with him to consummate their marriage. They finally did it at the 80% mark and again inside a carriage near the 88% mark.

He has a friend Simon, Lord Wade, who will be the hero in Book 3 and will find his HEA with the heroine’s sister.

[daemyra, the realm's delight · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. Surprisingly, the angst worked here… but the plot didn’t plot enough. Was pretty clear what the conflict would be and how the characters would respond.

[Caz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been on a bit of a "marriage-of-convenience" kick of late, and this book definitely fed my craving! It's well-written with consistent characterisation, although I have to say that I think David's father did come around rather quickly considering the way he'd been represented throughout the beginning of the book.

Victoria is an appealing heroine, initially rather gauche in society principally due to the fact that her father persistently ran her down; but she blossoms after her marriage and shows herself to be practical and more than capable of holding her own in society.
David is, sadly, fairly insensitive to her for much of the book, although his requirements in a wife were limited to someone to be his hostess, run his house and bear his children; and he does admit at the end that he'd been blinded by his own selfishness to the extend that he hadn't considered Victoria as a person at the outset.

Although much of the drama in the book hinges on the scandals that haunt both families (and to be honest, while unpleasant, I'm not sure that either secret would have been cause for social ostracism), and I'm not a fan of too much mis-communication in my HRs, I did like the fact that Victoria was fairly forthright about challenging David when he did something to upset her (as when his former mistress called at their house!), and that, having realised the need to own up to her family secret, she didn't drag it out or beat about the bush when it came to it.

Oh, and I liked the idea of their communicating via Victoria's diary when they were children. I'm certainly someone for whom writing can be quite theraputic, so that was something I can sympathise with.

There are two other books in this series, featuring Victoria's two sisters, who we meet briefly here, and I'll be looking for those on the strength of this one.

[Debby *BabyDee* · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a series challenge that I decided to do and a first time by this author, Gayle Callen. The Lord Next Door was a very nice story and the repercussions that scandals can have on two prominent families.

Miss Victoria is a very naive heroine int he story and it takes her quite some time for adhere to the principals of society. Although she starts out naive, she turns into a very independent woman and upon her marriage to husband, she paves her way to owning her status in society.

Lord David too has his insecurities where scandal is concern. He has lived a sad life, sheltering himself from society and the scandal that haunted his family at the hands of his father. Although his requirements for a wife hinges on her not causing attention and scandal to his name, Victoria agrees. Both characters have their shelfish needs of what they need from one another...she needs to be free from debt and he needs someone to take care of his home and father with no questions asked.

I thought the story was well-written and transitioned well to the HEA. The heroine made no qualms about her feelings when treated unfairly and the hero had to lower his standards in realizing that all is not what is seemed where his father was concerned. In the end, forgiveness plays a important part on the parts of the parents and their children.

4-Stars

[Jultri · Rating 3 out of 5]

General gist not bad of two neighbouring children who developed a friendship through a shared journal, yet kept physically apart as her father was a commoner banker whereas he was the only child of the earl (although pretending at the time to be the cook's son). Her family fell on tough times after her father's suicide and in desperation she sought out her old friend to ask for his help not knowing his true identity. Although shocked and initially betrayed by his lies when she found out, she agreed to marry him in name only to save her family from destitution and in turn providing him with the perfect hostess he required. The characters were often inconsistent, the flow of the plot disjointed at times and the writing rather too simplistic for my liking.

[Carissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was good, I just wanted a bit more from the couple, but I'm excited for book 3 in this series.

[Tee · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a lesson in grammar. Not the good kind either. It was kind of an example of all the things you shouldn’t do when writing anything but a text message. (Probably harsh judgment, but bare with me.)

There were so many syntax errors, run-on lines, and missing punctuations, that I was shocked. The author started sentences and entire paragraphs, with conjunctions; particularly the use of And’ and ‘But’. The latter happened at least once on every page. (If you think I’m exaggerating, open a random page in the book.)

There were paragraphs whose first lines were the tail end of the preceding paragraph. How someone could have missed the errors confounds me. The conjunctions were entirely unnecessary too. Many of the sentences could have been fixed by simply deleting the connectors (or switching them with an alternative.)

The premise underlying the plot was also illogical. The FMC’s family was in dire state financially having lost all their wealth. The FMC remembered she had a childhood best friend living in the Earl’s estate next to hers. The best friend happened to be a kitchen boy. I don’t understand why the FMC thought it was a good idea to go to a kitchen boy for financial help with saving her family’s estate. I mean does he secretly invest in Bitcoins? What exactly was the plan? Marry a kitchen boy, save her estate?

I wish I could say the characters came alive or the world did. But nope. (See I just did it. Darn conjunctions!)

[Izzah ꒰Duchess of Cabria ಇ ⭑✧ ᴏɴ ᴘᴀᴛʀᴇᴏɴ ✧ ⋆꒱ · Rating 1 out of 5]

Calling time of death

This was just plain boring. So boring, in fact,
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🕮⋆˚࿔✎𓂃 𝐣𝐨𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐲 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰
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[Juliana Philippa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Callen's Tudor romances are *much* better - this book failed to engage me and was lacking spark

[1844, England:]
I have liked Gayle Callen's books in the past - most recently His Scandal, Book 2 in her "His" Series - but I did *not* enjoy The Lord Next Door. I found myself wanting to skim parts of the book (which I NEVER do), especially the end and the last scene between Victoria and David where they go on and on, resolving every last thing that's been popping up throughout the book. There were some promising moments and scenes, but on the whole the book did not click for me and I would be hard-pressed to ever read it again, let alone recommend it to someone else. Callen is a talented writer and this is the first book of hers that I have disliked, so I'm just chalking it up as a fluke and moving on to her others (the two remaining books in the series seem promising ... we'll see!).

PRAISE:
~ The conversation between David and Victoria on their wedding night is entertaining and humorous.
~ It is a nice change in the genre to have the hero and heroine be the same age (they are both 26 years old when the story takes place).
~ Victoria's mother and David's father, who at the beginning of the book seem like they will be flat secondary characters cast in cookie-cutter roles (the silly, not-very-bright, social climbing mother and the mean, grumpy, and selfish father) were surprisingly interesting and were actually more engaging than the main characters!

CRITICISM:
~ David is a stern and secretive character and normally I can take my hero any way (geez, I make them sound like ice cream, lol) - laughing and joyful, serious and dour, haunted and vengeful, whatever - but for most of the book I found him inaccessible and not really all that engaging or interesting.
~ Victoria was even worse, IMO. Her character was not at all consistent - at times I found her to be far too boring, placid, and even weak, while at other times she showed a strength of character and will that did not at all ring true with the weak Victoria that we had just encountered a page or paragraph before. (Frankly, the Victoria of the diary entries in the Prologue almost seems more interesting than any adult version of her that we meet!)
~ There wasn't much chemistry between Victoria and David and I couldn't really see why either was attracted to the other ... there was just no spark. Again, this was definitely a failing of the characters that Callen wrote, because I know that she is most certainly able to write great chemistry and interesting characters who complement each other (read His Scandal).
~ The premise of the book and how it begins is shaky - Victoria's family is in dire straits so she goes to see the servant boy next door ... what could he possibly do to help them? How would marrying him accomplish anything? And if the family is so badly off, why are her two younger sisters working and she's not? This is of course how she and David are set-up to meet (with David actually being himself, and not "Tom") and for the plot and marriage-of-convenience to unfold, but it's all very contrived. Normally I can easily overlook implausible plots or contrived story ploys, but since the book didn't have much else to recommend it, this just added to my annoyance and disappointment.

VERY ANNOYING QUOTE (should have tipped me off right away that I wouldn't really like this heroine):
"She had no great mission in life, as some women had, to reform society or negate poverty. She would cast little scandal on a family already brimming with its own." (p.30)

THE SISTERS OF WILLOW POND TRILOGY:
This book is part of Gayle Callen's "The Sisters of Willow Pond Trilogy." The order of the series is as follows: Book 1, The Lord Next Door (Victoria's story); Book 2, The Duke in Disguise (Meriel's story); and Book 3, The Viscount in Her Bedroom (Louisa's story).

BOTTOM LINE and RECOMMENDATIONS:
*Skip it!* Read His Scandal by Gayle Callen instead, or if you want to read a *FABULOUS* marriage-of-convenience book, I recommend Mary Balogh's Slightly Married, Book 1 in the Bedwyn Family series (the whole series is worth reading and if you plan to do that, I would start with A Summer to Remember, which first introduces the Bedwyn family and is a prequel, or with One Night for Love, which precedes the prequel.

[Lady Darcie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! David and Victoria are such great people that it was so sad to read about all the hardship that they had to deal with. This book shows how cruel people can be and how love can help turn that around. David was so sweet and I loved how they started writing to each other when they were just 10 (But Victoria didnt know she was writing to David she thought it was a cooks son named tom) what a great read!!

[Darbella · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Victoria and David My favorite part was the beginning of the story... the journal. Slow burn. Sort of a boring couple that teased each other in the bedroom till they finally had sex. I do appreciate that the plain heroine evolved to a pretty lady that the hero enjoyed looking at and being with. David was the type of hero that wants to avoid scandal at all costs, but then does things like letting his mistress into their home after he married Victoria for a chat.

[Fangirl Musings · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a weird one for me. While I did finish the novel and somewhat enjoyed it, I found numerous issues that made the reading of this story somewhat difficult.

For starters, the hero of the story, David, was a bit difficult to understand. Essentially, he is a very stoic man, extremely rigid in his demeanor and not at all expressive at large. While I do love diverse character types, to some degree, I find characters that are given this personality can sometimes seem one dimensional. This was the issue with The Lord Next Door. While I eventually found myself liking this character, he was very difficult to connect or engage with.

I also found the heroine of this story, Victoria, a bit bland. For all her creativity and alleged passion in the book, she came off as being a bit dry. This was only accentuated by her "I-Must-Be-The-Perfect-Wife" syndrome/mentality throughout the book. Again, like with David, I found her to be somewhat one dimensional, and at times, dull.

My other issue with this novel deals with its structure. Aside from the fact that the ending was very obviously, and quite painfully, rushed, I also noticed the emotional scenes between any of the characters were very badly done. Sometimes they felt cliched and felt like hyperbole, and others they were rather rushed. The endearing words were used, but the phrasing occasionally felt awkward or stilted. This would not be so bad if this awkwardness were limited to just the main characters, for then it would be explained by their character types. Sadly, this occurred in several conversations among the book's sub-characters.

Ironically, after all the aforementioned criticisms, one would assume, especially after analyzing my track record with book's that disappoint, this book would have been tossed by the wayside 30 pages in. However, such was not the case, because I found myself rapidly interested in the developing relationship between Victoria and David. While sadly the book did not seem to satisfy my interest between these two individuals, it was not a complete waste of time.

I did enjoy a few aspects to this book. The fact that Callen decided to forgo the consummation of Victoria and David's wedding was an interesting change of pace. I find that sex is most definitely a very crucial turning point to a relationship, and by constructing the story in the manner Callen did, the book seemed to have more "meat," or content, to it.

Another facet I enjoyed was the unique spin this author took with such a story. I found myself rather interested in the fact that David was an industrialist, and this point did play a marginal (though forced) part to the plot. I do congratulate callen, though, for managing to maintain my interest in the novel to complete the story. Typically, when a book irritates me past a certain level, I don't waste my time finishing it, and when considering the issues I had with The Lord Next Door, it is very ironic that I completed this book.

Overall, it was not vastly enjoyable, but I did not walk away hating the book either.

[Peggy M · Rating 4 out of 5]

2nd read : 2020
1st read : 2013


Recently, I had a conversation with a friend about historical romance writers and their books and I remembered loving the books of the writer Gayle Callen very much (many years ago). So I decided to re-read this story ‘The lord next door’ again and see if I would enjoy it as much as I remembered. I’m happy to say that I did enjoy it very much.

‘The lord next door’ is a sweet, light, slow burn romance story. Perfect if you just want to relax and enjoy a romance story without a lot of drama but with still entertaining to read and told in both POV’s.

It’s a marriage of convenient between 2 people who were once secret childhood friends but lost contact when they grew older.

Victoria was a wonderful character. She may be shy but she’s also strong in her own quiet way. I loved that very much. How she kept going even during hard times, how she tried her best to help her mother and sisters. She could be stubborn but that helped her very much during the difficult times before her marriage and as a married woman.

David was an intelligent man, who although he was a lord, also had a fascination for business and especially with trains and the railways. He acted more from his practical, intelligent side then from his emotions. But during the story you felt his fascination grow for his wife and his feelings too. I liked the interaction between them both very much. The second characters were also very entertaining.

This story was just what I was looking for. Fun, sweet, light with endearing characters.

[Fran (with the book addiction) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one bored me later on in the book and I just wanted to get it finished. The heroine was irritatingly naive.

[Veromika · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was friends-to-lovers done right, with layered characters, nuanced family dynamics, and slow burn romance. I have a few grievances though. I wish we could have seen more of the themes of gentlemen in commerce, without the romantic flair attached to it. I felt cheated when they revealed that despite his lofty claims, David's interest in commerce was to be successful enough to erase past scandals in his family.
I also found the ending unduly easy. I liked that they gave importance to open communication, but when conflicts get resolved with one conversation, it's lazy writing.
However, I did enjoy the book. It's becoming extremely difficult to find well-written historical romances lately. *sigh*

[ChasingLeslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a child, Miss Victoria Shelby starts a correspondence with the boy next door when he spies on her and leaves a note in her journal. As an adult, Victoria is in dire straits. Her father has died, money is running out, and her family is soon to be evicted from her home. When she turns to her childhood pen pal, she realizes he’s not the servant he pretended to be, but a Viscount in need of a wife!

This was a 3.5 star read for me, but not enough for bump to four. I really liked the writing style and the first several chapters flew by. My complaint is that it took a long time for secrets to be fully revealed and I was also impatient for more connection.

[Suzanne (Under the Covers Book blog) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Victoria is desperate. Her family is on the brink of poverty after her father’s financial ruin and then death, she is barely holding the household together, and with a looming deadline for their eviction from her home she is running out of options. Her only option seems to be marriage, but her prospects have always been non-existent, now with no dowry or good name it seems even less likely. Until she remembers her childhood friend and next door neighbour who she had a secret correspondence with. Although he is only a cook’s son, being a servant’s wife is better than being homeless. However, Tom isn’t quite who he said he was and instead he was David, Viscount Thurlow.

This is actually the second time I have read this book, I originally got it years ago and happened to find my copy of it on my kindle and decided to give it a reread. It was as I remembered, a pleasant read, with a plain Jane kind of heroine (something I love) and her romance with her much-changed and kind of angsty neighbour. It isn’t a book that sticks out in the genre, which is probably why I had forgotten I had even read it, but it is a nice book to sit back and relax with.

The marriage between Victoria and David starts out pretty cold, but I love the way that their relationship gradually warms up as they get to know one another again and David begins to see Victoria as more than a convenient person to run his house. Victoria also shows a little personal growth as well, after taking on the responsibility for her family after her father’s death she has gained more confidence, which gradually increases as she settles into being David’s wife.

I haven’t read the other books in this series yet, which go into Victoria’s sisters lives, but I do plan to, The Lord Next Door was a nice start to the series and something I would recommend if you like plain Jane books or want something to relax with.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved how utterly SWEET this story was! Victoria and Tom (David) grew up next door to one another. And they never meet in person they forged a friend ship by writing to one another in a journal. Years latter Victoria remembers her old friend in her hour of need and seeks him out. Imagine her shock when she discovers that Tom is not the cooks son but rather the son of an Earl, and what's this? His name is not Tom but David! After explaining his Duplicity David asks Victoria to marry him, and though she has reservations Victoria has no other choice if she plans to keep her mother and her off the street's.

And thus the story begins! This book is slow moving in time but I found myself rather captivated by the story as I watched Victoria and Davids relationship grow. Unlike most books the H&Hr didn't just fall in bed with one another, nor did she completely shun him until he decided to seduce her. Rather both agreed to wait and David took time to slowly allow Victoria to become accustom to him and the intimacies of there marriage. One might think that this would be boring, instead it rather added to the story and made ever part of there relationship more meaningful.

I highly recommend this story, and if you like it then I might also recommend Lori Wick's 'The Proposal', or any of her English Garden series.

4.5 Stars!

[LadyAileen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Il lord della porta accanto è il primo volume della serie historical romance Sisters of Willow Pond, chiamata così dal nome del posto segreto delle sorelle protagoniste. Ogni volume è autoconclusivo ma se volete conoscere meglio l’inizio della storia andrebbero letti nel loro ordine di pubblicazione.
Le vicende sono raccontate dal punto di vista (in terza persona) dei due protagonisti e tutto inizia quando Victoria (10 anni) scrive un diario che viene trovato da Tom, il bambino vicino di casa che dice di essere il figlio della cuoca. I due attraverso il diario iniziano a scriversi e a diventare così amici fino a quando improvvisamente a 16 anni Tom smette. Victoria è figlia di un banchiere e il padre vorrebbe per lei un matrimonio con un nobile ma lei è timida e fa fatica ad ambientarsi. Passano gli anni, il padre ha perso il suo patrimonio e si è suicidato. Victoria e le sorelle devono rimboccarsi le mani per sopravvivere. Victoria decide di rimanere accanto alla madre mentre le altre due decidono di andare a lavorare: una come istitutrice mentre l’altra come dama di compagnia (entrambe le sorelle e il protagonista maschile del terzo volume faranno una breve apparizione di questo).
Purtroppo Victoria e la madre devono trovare al più presto una nuova sistemazione perché il nuovo proprietario della loro casa è intenzionato a stabilirsi lì. Victoria decide quindi di rivolgersi al suo amico Tom (anche se sono anni che non lo sente) e di farsi sposare (sul diario Tom le aveva fatto la proposta) ma quando finalmente lo vede avrà una brutta sorpresa: Tom in realtà è David Thurlow ed è un visconte.
Devo ammettere che non ha molto senso che Victoria vada alla ricerca di Tom per farsi sposare: uno perché è una proposta avvenuta quando i due erano bambini/adolescenti (in più non avevano alcun contatto da anni e non si erano nemmeno mai visti) e due perché il figlio di una cuoca dovrebbe avere abbastanza soldi per aiutare economicamente sia lei che la madre. Secondo me, sarebbe stato più sensato far incontrare Victoria e David, farli sposare e solo successivamente far scoprire che David era in realtà Tom. L’attuale impostazione che è stata data al romanzo rende la storia un tantino noiosetta.
Non mi dispiace il tropo del matrimonio di convenienza ma in questo caso non ho sentito alcuna tensione sessuale tra i due. Non c’è alchimia e ho fatto davvero fatica a capire perché dovessero essere attratti l’uno dall’altro.
Non mi ha convinto nemmeno il cambio di atteggiamento del padre del protagonista, l’ho trovato troppo repentino.
Per quanto riguarda i protagonisti: David è un personaggio rigido e riservato che non mi ha fatto impazzire, Victoria è stata spesso un po’ troppo tranquilla e debole e quando si mostrava forte non è risultata credibile ai miei occhi.
Nel complesso è un libro con un ritmo altalenante e la tentazione di abbandonarlo è stata tanta ma alla fine sono riuscita a finirlo.
Vorrei dare un’altra opportunità all’autrice e provare a leggere il secondo volume che sembra decisamente più interessante.

[Monique Takens · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ik heb de Nederlands talige uitgave gelezen : Candlelight Historische roman 790 - Liefde op papier .
Het is erg moeilijk om een objectieve beoordeling over dit boek te geven omdat ik net hiervoor de Survivers club serie van Mary Balogh heb gelezen en zij is mijn absolute favoriet in dit genre en tja .. dan valt alles erna een beetje tegen . Misschien komt het ook door de vertaling of doordat het verhaal hier en daar ingekort is - dit boek heeft 318 pagina's terwijl het origineel er ongeveer 50 meer heeft .
Ik heb goede hoop dat de volgende in de serie iets beter leest omdat de regels tekst per bladzijde van 31 naar 33 regels is verhoogd .
Het verhaal is niet erg origineel en de romantiek was maar zozo . Ik geef dit boek het voordeel van de twijfel met 3 sterren .

[Maria Dariotis · Rating 5 out of 5]

So cute, I loved the concept of how David and Victoria were communicating via her diary. Although Victoria knew David as Tom his pen name in her diary, they had a good relationship were friends. Years later circumstances and hard times bring Victoria to David’s front door unbeknownst to both of them that they know each other. They had such a slow burn romance I found the chemistry between them was very well written. The author did a good job in the development of the romance, I was totally invested in the love story their happy ending wasn’t without any misunderstandings.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

[Laurel · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the "From Rakes to Riches" anthology.

[Thenia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A story with an interesting premise that somehow failed to engage me as much as I expected.

Victoria and David had been writing to each other as children, but the familiarity one would have expected between people who share that kind of history, was mostly lacking.

For reasons of their own that have nothing to do with affection, the two decide to marry, but David is determined to keep living his life as he has been, consumed by his business and political efforts. Victoria on the other hand strives to become the perfect wife to him, feeling guilty about the secret she's withholding from him about the truth of her father's death, and goes out of her way to initiate his re-entry to society.

There is a slow burn between them as far as intimacy goes, as David follows her wishes and slowly familiarizes her, but all in all the two remain separate for the biggest part of the story and only solve their problems at the very end.

A little less than satisfying, yet with a few interesting elements, this is the first of three books in the series, which continues with The Duke in Disguise.

[MaggieReadsRom · Rating 3 out of 5]

The blurb sounded so promising but unfortunately the book did not quite live up to the promise.
Not that it was a bad book, just not very exciting or worldrocking, but still entertaining.
Secrets, misunderstanding and scandal rule their worlds but Victoria and David find each other in a nice average story. Their childhood fascination with each other, getting to know each other just by secret entries in a journal, grows into love despite all the scandals.
Scandals which are made bigger by themselves and which would weigh much less on their minds if they opened up earlier to each other.
But it's nice to read how Victoria’s low selfconfidence is developed and strenghtened by David's confidence in her and David's harsh exterior and behaviour changes when he marries Victoria.
The marriage starts as a means to and end for both of them but progresses to be strong and filled with their mutual love.

Despite the averageness of the book I'm still curious to learn the stories of Victoria's sisters, they will be told in book 2 and 3 of this trilogy and hopefully, the average start of book 1 will grow into stronger and better installements with the stories of Meriel and Louisa.

[Lady Aeval · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a nice read. Not superb, but definitely worth the time. I like regency romances without a whole lot of melodrama. This delivers that. One-time childhood friends of unequal class meets years later and enter into a marriage of convenience. Both harbor secrets, but neither secret is really a threat to their well being which was a nice change since it seems most writers of regency romance feel the need to through something like a kidnapping or murder in for some reason. The characters are developed nicely even the peripheral ones which always adds to the novel in my opinion. The characters are likable and even though there is a need to suspend reality a bit, it is not so crazy that you simply want to scream. All in all this was exactly what I was looking for when I bought it, a nice romance.

[Charlie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Most of the book felt like a non-event with false tension created by people just not being honest with each other.

With reference to the ton, I rather doubt that any group of people would be so enamored with other people that they would remember and care about scandals from 5 years past.

Both main characters seemed too absorbed with themselves - what people would think/say about them, how they could 'protect' each other, the trouble with relationships within their families, etc. There was reprieve from this line in the form of the hero caring about his Railway and about political issues but these seemed like an afterthought.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not very good - the main characters seemed awfully daffy when they weren't wildly inconsistent. When the hero said he "married her for her spirit" I actually wondered if the author was thinking of someone else. One or two good lines elevate this above one star.

[Maddux · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book really grabbed me. I didn't want to put it down.

I loved how this heroine WORKED for her marriage. She wanted it to succeed, and she put the work into it to see it happen.

Wonderful.

Sweet story.

4 stars.

[Rose Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

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