To Enchant a Lady’s Heart by Robin Lee Hatcher

To Enchant a Lady's Heart by Robin Lee Hatcher
Series: The British Are Coming #1
on May 22, 2023
Genres: Fiction / Christian / Romance / Historical, Fiction / Religious, Fiction / Romance / General, Fiction / Romance / Historical / Victorian
Pages: 154
Format: Audiobook, eBook
Amazon|Barnes&Noble|Goodreads

He has nothing to offer. She has everything to lose.

Despite the dishonorable circumstances of his own birth, Adam Faulkner has never begrudged his half-brother Sebastian's legitimate position as the Viscount Willowthorpe. Having a title and everything that goes with it never mattered to Adam-until "everything" became the hand of Miss Eliza Southwick. Adam knows, as the stable manager at Hooke Manor, he shouldn't hope to wed a well-born miss. After all, enchanting such a lady's heart would take a true gentleman...something he is not.

Eliza Southwick loves horses more than society and doesn't care a whit about status or titles. But her father has set his sights on the Viscount Willowthorpe for his future son-in-law and has brought his daughter to Hooke Manor in hopes of arranging a marriage contract. When a spark first kindled during a chance meeting between Eliza and Adam grows stronger, she doesn't dare tell her father how she feels. He will disown her entirely if she fails to do his will, and the cost of following her heart has never seemed higher.

So fun fact, I have this both as an audiobook from Hoopla and the eBook on my Kindle.  That came in handy, as when I started listening, I was taken surprised by how short the listen was.  I went to the eBook and realized quickly that it was accurate based on the number of pages.  It feels more like a long novella than a full-length novel.  There’s a lot of punch for only 137 pages, but when it comes to novellas, I tend to struggle with the impact to the story itself.  Looking at my Storygraph for this year, most (76% of my books so far) are 300-499 pages.  Apparently, I really crave words.

I am really looking forward to this series as the 5th book is the April read for the Christian Fiction Reading Challenge.  And, fun fact, there’s a 6th coming out later this year!  I think Adam and Eliza’s love story is the perfect setup for his half-siblings’ trip to America.  They talk about it, long for it, and plan for it.  All while Adam is falling in love with a woman he can’t have, and Eliza is risking everything she knows for Adam.  Ultimately, though, for me, it feels too clean and simple.  None of what they are choosing to do is clear of life impact or simple.  In my head, I’m literally thinking easy, breezy, kinda beautiful Cover Girl.  Don’t know if that resonates outside my head, but that’s where I am, right now.

Listen, I think sometimes I’m back in Kindergarten and it’s Show and Tell time.  And I’m reading a lot of books that tell me a lot of things but show me very little.  It’s like coming to the carpet to tell me about your favorite thing without actually bringing it for me to see.  This feels like that.  There are great, I mean great, bones for a well-developed story that misses the mark because it moves so fast.  I hear a lot about how they fall in love, how she stands up to her father for love, but I don’t ever feel the emotions that go with that.  There’s just not enough words available in a novella to give me that.  It’s a great read (I promise it is) and an amazing setup for the series, but I just wanted more.

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Posted By: Fizzy Pop · In: book review, Robin Lee Hatcher, The British Are Coming, To Enchant a Lady's Heart