Something in the Heir

Suzanne Enoch

Blurb:

Emmeline and William Pershing have enjoyed a perfectly convenient marriage for eight years. Their relationship is a seamless blend of their talents and goals. They’ve settled into separate, well-ordered lives beneath the same roof, and are content to stay that way—or so Emmeline thinks. And if William has secretly longed for a bit more from the woman he adores, he’s managed to be content with her supreme skills as a hostess and planner, which has helped him advance his career.

Then when Emmeline’s grandfather, the reclusive Duke of Welshire, summons them both for his birthday celebration and demands they bring their two little angelic children, William is stunned to discover that his very proper wife invented not one, but two heirs to fulfill the agreement for living at Winnover. But surely if Emmeline and William team up and borrow two cherubs to call their own, what could go wrong? Enter George, age 8, and Rose, 5—the two most unruly orphans in Britain.

As the insanity unfolds, their careful, professional arrangement takes some surprisingly intimate turns as well. Perhaps it takes a bit of madness to create the perfect happily ever after.

Themes: Historical, Rom-Com

Rating: 2.75 stars

Heat Rating:

Review:

Ok to preface this review, I have to say that I didn’t really consider this to be a romance novel at all, more like mom literature or something of that nature, so it wasn’t at all to my tastes. I am usually a great fan of Suzanne Enoch’s work, especially her Scottish Romance novels, so I figured, despite the cover not much grabbing my attention I would grab it when it came up for review, but I was sadly disappointed. The story begins with a young woman that is determined to marry simple to meet a codicil in the family will and so she pulls in one of her best friends and together they scheme to trick her family. Emmeline then compounds the scheme by lying to her family for almost a decade by saying her husband William and she has produced the required progeny needed to maintain the estate she so badly wanted. Now that her grandfather and family want to meet these children, Emeline and William add more fire to the lie by “borrowing” two orphans from the local orphanage and spending time trying to turn them into the perfect children of two peers of the realm. As you can imagine this is a disaster and the children lead them on a merry adventure that ultimately reminds them of their love and Boom, they all become one big happy family, despite most likely losing it all. So not being a fan of children, vehemently opposed to lying—especially in relationships—and definitely not a big fan of “borrowing” people in order to advance one’s station, this story feel flat for me. There wasn’t much romance, the couple finding that they had loved each other all along but had been hiding it from one another was typical regency romance ridiculousness. The laughs that kids caused as they made trouble were kind of amusing, but still, not a kid person so, ehh. And the ending was one I pretty much saw coming a mile away. All in all, not one I would have bothered to finish except that I wanted to be able to give a full honest review. I will be more wary in future when it comes to stories of this nature for sure.