A-
Genre: Historical: European, Regency, Romance
This RITA® Reader Challenge 2016 review was written by LauraL. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Short Historical category.
The summary:
One good proposition deserves another…
Heiress Augusta Meredith can’t help herself—she stirs up gossip wherever she goes. A stranger to Bath society, she pretends to be a charming young widow, until sardonic, darkly handsome Joss Everett arrives from London and uncovers her charade.
Augusta persuades Joss to keep her secret in exchange for a secret of his own. Weaving their way through the treacherous pitfalls of a polite world only too eager to expose and condemn them, they begin to see that being true to themselves is not so bad…as long as they’re true to each other…
Here is LauraL's review:
I think almost everyone has felt to be the outsider at some point in their lives and I think everyone would love a second chance. In Secrets of a Scandalous Heiress, Theresa Romain brings together two outsiders who live in the shadows of the glittering ton during the Regency and gives them the opportunity for second chances.
At the beginning of the story, heiress Augusta Meredith is posing as a cheerful and not wealthy widow named Mrs. Flowers. Augusta/Mrs. Flowers is making an off-season visit to Bath with her friend, Lady Emily Tallant, who is taking the waters for a cure. Mrs. Flowers is in search of a lover and Augusta is still grieving the loss of her parents while also hiding from the flirtatious and scandalous reputation she garnered in London. Enter Joss Everett, grandson of a baron, and man of business to his second cousin who is in town to help his employer solve a crisis. Joss is in the shadows of the ton because of his employment and his mixed heritage courtesy of an Eastern Indian grandmother. Augusta is the daughter of parents who rose from the servant class. She is extremely wealthy but isn’t blue-blooded enough for the ton. This isn’t your usual Duke story set in Regency London.
Joss immediately recognizes Augusta and calls her out on her charade and banter between the two of them ensues. Promises are made and secrets shared. Then the attraction takes hold as Joss and Augusta continues to cross paths in Bath society, with some sweet kisses and some hot times as their relationship progresses. Augusta and Josh enjoy each other’s company, learn about each other’s lives, and start to care for one another. The contrast between their heritages and their positions in society is quite plain but perhaps not the obstacle perceived at first. Both Joss and Augusta make realizations about themselves which help them grow, both separately and together. I cheered when Joss realized he has been party to his own servitude and takes steps to be move away from his past. Augusta has a moment of self-realization as well while talking with Lady Emily. Heady stuff.
Not for the first time, Joss wondered whether society’s reluctance to deal with her – and with him – stemmed from their birth or from their behavior.
Along with being part of the troubles in Joss’ life, his employer and cousin, Baron Sutcliffe, adds comic relief at times with his self-involvement and flighty behavior. Augusta’s friend, Lady Emily, is suffering from her personal loss and both women begin to work their way through grief while in Bath. Joss learns a lesson from Lord Chatfield, who knows things. The secondary characters provide comic relief or a pause at times when the tension could become too much.
Scent is a theme in the story as Augusta is heiress to a fortune made in women’s beauty products. She immediately notices the scent of sandalwood around Joss and he notices her flowery perfume. Appropriate since she is posing as Mrs. Flowers! I loved how the ending tied together their heritages, along with scents, and brought our hero and heroine to their happily ever after. Finally, the epilogue was satisfying with a glimpse into the future of the main characters.
I have two minor quibbles with the book. Firstly, Joss calls Augusta “my dear fake widow” often at the beginning of the story. The teasing of Augusta by Joss is a big, and enjoyable, part of their story but she did ask him to stop. I asked him to stop while I was reading the book. Secondly, the pacing of the story was a bit slow at times and I caught myself checking to see how far along I was in my reading a few times.
Theresa Romain is one of my favorite authors. I loved her seasonal-themed “Holiday Pleasure” series and may have been rude during an end-of-day conference call on A Gentleman’s Game release day as I was impatient to get back to reading my new horsy book. My grade for Secrets of a Scandalous Heiress is an A- with an A for the prose and the original story and the demerit for pacing.
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I agree, very good book!
I really liked many aspects of this book – the uncommon characters, who are both enough of decent family to be kinda-sorta inside society, and also always standing on the outside, looking in – but had such a hard time with the repetition of “My dear fake widow”. I was re-reading it very recently and wound up quitting. I sort of thought maybe I had imagined or exaggerated just how often the phrase is repeated, but no, it’s really odd. I don’t understand why an editor didn’t catch that. It’s the sort of phrase you can use once, MAYBE twice in a book. And for all I know a man of that time would have used that phrasing, but something about “fake” makes it sound anachronistically modern to my ears.
I do think Theresa Romain is a very good writer, but if you’re prone to being grated on by repeated phrasing, this may not be the book of hers you will enjoy most.
I have this on my TBR