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colorfulleo92's review against another edition
3.0
Saw this and got curious, it's not often I read historical romance with a family twist to it. The story was pleasant to read but nothing to interesting
welkinvault's review against another edition
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Fairly well written Regency.
Update - two days later I cannot easily remember the plot. But if you want something light and soft and in the Regency style this is good.
Update - two days later I cannot easily remember the plot. But if you want something light and soft and in the Regency style this is good.
robinwalter's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
sonny's review against another edition
5.0
To put it simply...this story becomes THE BACHELOR: REGENCY EDITION...like, halfway through the book it got so stupendously awesome, especially having Sofia be thrust into the mix of young women arriving at Duke of Theakstone's palatial estate and home...or Oliver if you will.
I LOVED the opening scene. I watched a French show on Netflix called "BONFIRE OF DESTINY" about 3 women and how their lives shifted and changed amid the aftermath of the Paris Charity Bazaar Fire in 1897, where hundreds of aristocratic women and children lost their lives or were severely injured. That was fresh in my mind when Burrows told readers in her Author's Note that she based this off a real event- people randomly celebrating Napoleon's defeat in France...where people didn't fathom how flammable firework displays could be and well...yeah, it is quite a harrowing opening and stuck with me throughout the book, especially since it showed us how great a heroine Sofia is, through and through.
As she runs, after getting up from almost being trampled by the rush of bystanders escaping the grassy open area...she finds herself spotting a woman engulfed in flames from the skirt of her dress. As she sped-runs toward her, she cannot help but see that two men, in white shirts and black pants are coming from another direction; she immediately recalls those are waiters from the earlier meal she had. Sofia is instantly taking off her own clothes to douse this poor woman and finds herself being yelled at by one of the two men who came to the rescue as well.
This is Oliver. And he is a Grumpy McGrumperton, which I adored. Plus he was constantly confounded by how Sofia could twist him around. He had rules and morals to follow, but one minute around her and he was all confused and agitated. It was lovely to witness. Burrows described his frustrations so well. I chuckled deeply whenever he would yell at himself for forgetting something when Sofia left the room.
Oliver sends Amelia on her way...she had been elbowed by a gentleman in the rush to exit so she has a severe black eye and her clothes are quite dirty and bedraggled, plus she is without a jacket-type thing since she had given it to the woman on fire. She returns home to an Aunt and Uncle...who I like to call "suffering" Aunt & Uncle. Thing is...they're new in town, having brought their niece, Sofia, here so she can recover and recoup by the sea. Sofia has had some terrible bouts with infections and serious illness to the point where they thought her near-death at times. This Aunt & Uncle are, uh...her guardians, but they're kind of parenting her without really appreciating who she genuinely is. Her Aunt is the sister of her dear father, a Captain, who married a Portuguese woman of the Catholic faith. This was kind of an unwanted situation, so Sofia has been treated as lower-class pretty much her whole entire life, after losing first her mother than her beloved father. Sofia had come to live with her Aunt, who had married this Uncle who is said to have been beneath the Aunt's class standing. The Uncle is kind of wishy-washy about how much he cares about Sofia. He doesn't think of her as HIS niece, just the family of his wife.
Oliver learns he has new tenants on his lands - Sofia's Aunt & Uncle, so he also learns who Sofia is and wishes to visit her, make sure she is all right from the night of the fire and also relay to her some info about that woman they saved that night. Almost immediately, Oliver is stricken by Sofia's plight with her guardians. He feels like they treat her deplorably or at least they give off these signals of impropriety. Oliver cannot help but want to keep Sofia in his sights, so over the course of several days/weeks, he will come calling on Sofia to take her out in his carriage. Mainly to talk privately with her which he will always accidentally do the wrong thing with her and forget what his intentions were. Like she will confuse and confound him to the point where he never manages to talk to her about what he had intended, letting her go and berating himself for being a nincompoop.
Sofia is already being pursued by a gentleman, except she had just overheard days ago, the fact that Jack, this man she once thought loved her to pieces and she was falling for him, too... well, she overheard him talking privately with a friend about what he REALLY thought about her, how he was going to smother her with love to get married to her so he could get her money and then basically abandon her to a house and possibly sneak off to cheat with mistresses. So, yeah, not a decent fellow, one would think. And this is a man her Aunt & Uncle were pushing her towards at parties to eventually marry. Sofia is used to be treated deplorably by the ton - like a by-blow. She often feels like she is treated like an unwanted charge, especially by her Aunt & Uncle.
Oliver NEEDs a wife because he has a child from a mistress who he only learned about several months ago. Everyone will have their own ideas about why Oliver needs to marry NOW, but he will only reveal the truth to Sofia. Oliver sends an invite to Sofia, for her Aunt & Uncle as well, to come to his house, Theakstone. He is going to have a week-long house-party of several young ladies and their families, as well.
This is when it becomes THE BACHELOR, because once Sofia arrives...then the other young ladies show up...it becomes a fight and a battle for Oliver's attention and his private times, which he will often arrange. Sometimes he will focus too heavily on Sofia, but then..make her think he has no interest when he turns his attention toward other females, who - to her- look like the better, proper wife candidates.
Also, when it's not like an episode of THE BACHELOR, it's Sofia wandering around Oliver's grounds, wishing she were NOT there, but doing her own thing. Sofia has a mixed-breed Poodle, who when it was a puppy it looked like an actual "snowball", so that is what it is called. Snowball has been trained by Sofia to behave, but no one trusts her, so her faithful companion has been locked up and imprisoned in Oliver's kennels. So she will often run off to walk her dog, plowing through the woods. She even manages to do a bit of maturing while she is there, which she didn't expect to do.
I liked the private moments watching Sofia come into her own on Oliver's estate, especially since she got to run into Livvy...Oliver's hoyden daughter, who has been raised in secret since she has been living with her father. It's a new relationship for both and both of them are stumbling and making mistakes. Livvy thinks her father hates her...she is, after all, The Duke's Mistake...as Livvy tells Sofia her Governess Mrs. Starchypants [hehehe...so cute] has termed her.
When Oliver is out horseback riding with one of the other ladies, he spots Sofia under a tree, but he can "see" the tiny dangling legs of his daughter on a branch above Sofia. Oliver will allow the lady to go off with another rider they were using as a chaperon, and when he has privacy with Sofia, he will question her to such an extreme he almost assumes she will confess about Livvy. Instead, Sofia protects Livvy FROM HIM...and this gives him a genuine idea that Sofia is a great prospect for a wife because she cares for Livvy as an individual.
It isn't too long before Oliver makes an actual proposal...thinking a small conversation they had together was an outright admission of love for him. Love isn't important but eh...he is so adamant that Sofia is THE ONE. He doesn't seem to want to budge. He offers her 3-days of refuge to lament and think about her answer. It's really just the rest of the week-long house-party, so, yeah...but it puts Sofia in a sudden tailspin. With so many conflicting reasons for Oliver to marry...having seen all those better women who were "proper" wives for a Duke...it's tough for Sofia to make a decision except she cannot bear to let any of those ladies have him because it makes her jealous. And she really liked it when he kissed her...how he made her feel safe in his strong arms as he held her.
Sofia will have a small confrontation with one of the young ladies and accidentally falls into the nearby lake, off a dock. It was an extremely hot day and Sofia had been wanting to swim, so...she deep dives and swims underwater. But Oliver sees everything before and after Sofia's fall...and he thinks or assumes she is drowning. He becomes THE, literal, HERO and throws off heavy clothes to dive in and save Sofia. Except he quickly learns she was all right all along...but in order for propriety...he wants her to pretend to be a damsel in distress...it's an adorable scene. It really kind of woke Oliver up to look at his own feelings for Sofia, especially since he had already told her he never wanted to marry for love because he didn't believe in it.
Because of Sofia's past bouts with sickness and infection, it is best if she remains in her rooms and rest, relaxes, and stays warm. Really she enjoys it because she doesn't have to see the women, but she does worry about Snowball. Within 24hrs, Livvy comes to Sofia's room bringing Snowball...and the two center off in a nice pseudo-mother & daughter discussion. Especially Sofia telling Livvy that her father doesn't hate her, which Livvy can't have faith in until he can show it or say it.
For some reason, one-by-one, Sofia is getting one visitor to her room after another. First is was her Aunt...then Livvy w/Snowball...then her Aunt again [so Livvy & Snowball hid]...and then the Doctor who cleared Sofia for dinner, that night...and then, lastly, and most important...Oliver...who rushes into Sofia's bedroom, after loudly knocking...and he confesses ALL...everything...from one end of truth to the other. Even the fact that her fall into the water knocked some sense into him and his cold heart - he LOVES HER.
Livvy and Snowball are hiding, once more. But this time...Sofia wants Oliver to confess truths for LIVVY's ears alone...so it means peeling back those highly vulnerable layers to his own childhood...when he was treated like a gutter rat by his own family...his own father...given to a foster family, but returned at 12 to Theakstone...Oliver has never felt WANTED...so he hates hearing about people who get treated like scum just because of their birth...he only learned of Livvy months ago, because Livvy's mother had kept her secret for years. She had died but then allowed the troupe of actors she lived with to raise Livvy, and when they ran out of money to care for her, they figured she'd be better served to live with her father...and so...it's a really great scene, right from the moment Oliver enters the room...because it's at times comical...and heartfelt...to gut-wrenching and then...such a healing moment between Oliver and Livvy...well, Olivia, really...
And the story ends right at that moment...Sofia wanting to bang those two stubborn people's heads together, so she gathers them both in her own arms to hug them both close to her...really and truly a genuine happy ending. Especially since we know that Oliver and Sofia are on their way to go downstairs for dinner...where they will announce their engagement and Sofia will take her rightful place seated next to Oliver at his dinner table.
I LOVED the opening scene. I watched a French show on Netflix called "BONFIRE OF DESTINY" about 3 women and how their lives shifted and changed amid the aftermath of the Paris Charity Bazaar Fire in 1897, where hundreds of aristocratic women and children lost their lives or were severely injured. That was fresh in my mind when Burrows told readers in her Author's Note that she based this off a real event- people randomly celebrating Napoleon's defeat in France...where people didn't fathom how flammable firework displays could be and well...yeah, it is quite a harrowing opening and stuck with me throughout the book, especially since it showed us how great a heroine Sofia is, through and through.
As she runs, after getting up from almost being trampled by the rush of bystanders escaping the grassy open area...she finds herself spotting a woman engulfed in flames from the skirt of her dress. As she sped-runs toward her, she cannot help but see that two men, in white shirts and black pants are coming from another direction; she immediately recalls those are waiters from the earlier meal she had. Sofia is instantly taking off her own clothes to douse this poor woman and finds herself being yelled at by one of the two men who came to the rescue as well.
This is Oliver. And he is a Grumpy McGrumperton, which I adored. Plus he was constantly confounded by how Sofia could twist him around. He had rules and morals to follow, but one minute around her and he was all confused and agitated. It was lovely to witness. Burrows described his frustrations so well. I chuckled deeply whenever he would yell at himself for forgetting something when Sofia left the room.
Oliver sends Amelia on her way...she had been elbowed by a gentleman in the rush to exit so she has a severe black eye and her clothes are quite dirty and bedraggled, plus she is without a jacket-type thing since she had given it to the woman on fire. She returns home to an Aunt and Uncle...who I like to call "suffering" Aunt & Uncle. Thing is...they're new in town, having brought their niece, Sofia, here so she can recover and recoup by the sea. Sofia has had some terrible bouts with infections and serious illness to the point where they thought her near-death at times. This Aunt & Uncle are, uh...her guardians, but they're kind of parenting her without really appreciating who she genuinely is. Her Aunt is the sister of her dear father, a Captain, who married a Portuguese woman of the Catholic faith. This was kind of an unwanted situation, so Sofia has been treated as lower-class pretty much her whole entire life, after losing first her mother than her beloved father. Sofia had come to live with her Aunt, who had married this Uncle who is said to have been beneath the Aunt's class standing. The Uncle is kind of wishy-washy about how much he cares about Sofia. He doesn't think of her as HIS niece, just the family of his wife.
Oliver learns he has new tenants on his lands - Sofia's Aunt & Uncle, so he also learns who Sofia is and wishes to visit her, make sure she is all right from the night of the fire and also relay to her some info about that woman they saved that night. Almost immediately, Oliver is stricken by Sofia's plight with her guardians. He feels like they treat her deplorably or at least they give off these signals of impropriety. Oliver cannot help but want to keep Sofia in his sights, so over the course of several days/weeks, he will come calling on Sofia to take her out in his carriage. Mainly to talk privately with her which he will always accidentally do the wrong thing with her and forget what his intentions were. Like she will confuse and confound him to the point where he never manages to talk to her about what he had intended, letting her go and berating himself for being a nincompoop.
Sofia is already being pursued by a gentleman, except she had just overheard days ago, the fact that Jack, this man she once thought loved her to pieces and she was falling for him, too... well, she overheard him talking privately with a friend about what he REALLY thought about her, how he was going to smother her with love to get married to her so he could get her money and then basically abandon her to a house and possibly sneak off to cheat with mistresses. So, yeah, not a decent fellow, one would think. And this is a man her Aunt & Uncle were pushing her towards at parties to eventually marry. Sofia is used to be treated deplorably by the ton - like a by-blow. She often feels like she is treated like an unwanted charge, especially by her Aunt & Uncle.
Oliver NEEDs a wife because he has a child from a mistress who he only learned about several months ago. Everyone will have their own ideas about why Oliver needs to marry NOW, but he will only reveal the truth to Sofia. Oliver sends an invite to Sofia, for her Aunt & Uncle as well, to come to his house, Theakstone. He is going to have a week-long house-party of several young ladies and their families, as well.
This is when it becomes THE BACHELOR, because once Sofia arrives...then the other young ladies show up...it becomes a fight and a battle for Oliver's attention and his private times, which he will often arrange. Sometimes he will focus too heavily on Sofia, but then..make her think he has no interest when he turns his attention toward other females, who - to her- look like the better, proper wife candidates.
Also, when it's not like an episode of THE BACHELOR, it's Sofia wandering around Oliver's grounds, wishing she were NOT there, but doing her own thing. Sofia has a mixed-breed Poodle, who when it was a puppy it looked like an actual "snowball", so that is what it is called. Snowball has been trained by Sofia to behave, but no one trusts her, so her faithful companion has been locked up and imprisoned in Oliver's kennels. So she will often run off to walk her dog, plowing through the woods. She even manages to do a bit of maturing while she is there, which she didn't expect to do.
I liked the private moments watching Sofia come into her own on Oliver's estate, especially since she got to run into Livvy...Oliver's hoyden daughter, who has been raised in secret since she has been living with her father. It's a new relationship for both and both of them are stumbling and making mistakes. Livvy thinks her father hates her...she is, after all, The Duke's Mistake...as Livvy tells Sofia her Governess Mrs. Starchypants [hehehe...so cute] has termed her.
When Oliver is out horseback riding with one of the other ladies, he spots Sofia under a tree, but he can "see" the tiny dangling legs of his daughter on a branch above Sofia. Oliver will allow the lady to go off with another rider they were using as a chaperon, and when he has privacy with Sofia, he will question her to such an extreme he almost assumes she will confess about Livvy. Instead, Sofia protects Livvy FROM HIM...and this gives him a genuine idea that Sofia is a great prospect for a wife because she cares for Livvy as an individual.
It isn't too long before Oliver makes an actual proposal...thinking a small conversation they had together was an outright admission of love for him. Love isn't important but eh...he is so adamant that Sofia is THE ONE. He doesn't seem to want to budge. He offers her 3-days of refuge to lament and think about her answer. It's really just the rest of the week-long house-party, so, yeah...but it puts Sofia in a sudden tailspin. With so many conflicting reasons for Oliver to marry...having seen all those better women who were "proper" wives for a Duke...it's tough for Sofia to make a decision except she cannot bear to let any of those ladies have him because it makes her jealous. And she really liked it when he kissed her...how he made her feel safe in his strong arms as he held her.
Sofia will have a small confrontation with one of the young ladies and accidentally falls into the nearby lake, off a dock. It was an extremely hot day and Sofia had been wanting to swim, so...she deep dives and swims underwater. But Oliver sees everything before and after Sofia's fall...and he thinks or assumes she is drowning. He becomes THE, literal, HERO and throws off heavy clothes to dive in and save Sofia. Except he quickly learns she was all right all along...but in order for propriety...he wants her to pretend to be a damsel in distress...it's an adorable scene. It really kind of woke Oliver up to look at his own feelings for Sofia, especially since he had already told her he never wanted to marry for love because he didn't believe in it.
Because of Sofia's past bouts with sickness and infection, it is best if she remains in her rooms and rest, relaxes, and stays warm. Really she enjoys it because she doesn't have to see the women, but she does worry about Snowball. Within 24hrs, Livvy comes to Sofia's room bringing Snowball...and the two center off in a nice pseudo-mother & daughter discussion. Especially Sofia telling Livvy that her father doesn't hate her, which Livvy can't have faith in until he can show it or say it.
For some reason, one-by-one, Sofia is getting one visitor to her room after another. First is was her Aunt...then Livvy w/Snowball...then her Aunt again [so Livvy & Snowball hid]...and then the Doctor who cleared Sofia for dinner, that night...and then, lastly, and most important...Oliver...who rushes into Sofia's bedroom, after loudly knocking...and he confesses ALL...everything...from one end of truth to the other. Even the fact that her fall into the water knocked some sense into him and his cold heart - he LOVES HER.
Livvy and Snowball are hiding, once more. But this time...Sofia wants Oliver to confess truths for LIVVY's ears alone...so it means peeling back those highly vulnerable layers to his own childhood...when he was treated like a gutter rat by his own family...his own father...given to a foster family, but returned at 12 to Theakstone...Oliver has never felt WANTED...so he hates hearing about people who get treated like scum just because of their birth...he only learned of Livvy months ago, because Livvy's mother had kept her secret for years. She had died but then allowed the troupe of actors she lived with to raise Livvy, and when they ran out of money to care for her, they figured she'd be better served to live with her father...and so...it's a really great scene, right from the moment Oliver enters the room...because it's at times comical...and heartfelt...to gut-wrenching and then...such a healing moment between Oliver and Livvy...well, Olivia, really...
And the story ends right at that moment...Sofia wanting to bang those two stubborn people's heads together, so she gathers them both in her own arms to hug them both close to her...really and truly a genuine happy ending. Especially since we know that Oliver and Sofia are on their way to go downstairs for dinner...where they will announce their engagement and Sofia will take her rightful place seated next to Oliver at his dinner table.
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