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3.52 AVERAGE
3.52 AVERAGE
Hugh created a fake fiancé to stop his mother from meddling with his love life. But it seems to have backfired when his mother and her husband jump on a ship from America to meet his future bride. Did Hugh do what any sensible person would do and come clean? Of course not. Where would the fun be in that?
Enter Minerva. A young artist trying to take care of herself and her two younger sisters. When Hugh asks Minerva to be his fake fiancé, she was morally against it; but financially, it would change her and her sister’s lives. She just has to pretend to be in love with a rich, handsome, caring, charismatic gentleman. Whatever could go amiss?
Hugh’s elaborate lies keep trying to unravel and the secondary characters do an excellent job of helping them come to light. Minerva brings her sisters with her as a caveat to their arrangement. One sister is immature and keeps throwing fits while another sister is cynical and believes Hugh will either kill them or seduce her sister. The actress he hired to play the girl’s mother is very method and very much a drunkard. And his best friend is watching the wreckage in complete rapture waiting to tell him “I told you so!”
The plot was predictable and I loved every minute of it. Of course these two would end up falling for each other and have many misunderstandings on the way. But the journey was fun. It was funny and sweet and I have a feeling there will be a sequel. Perhaps with Hugh’s best friend Giles and Minerva’s sister Diana? I sure hope so, because I’ll read the heck out of that.
Special thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for releasing this ARC to me in exchange for an honest review.
Enter Minerva. A young artist trying to take care of herself and her two younger sisters. When Hugh asks Minerva to be his fake fiancé, she was morally against it; but financially, it would change her and her sister’s lives. She just has to pretend to be in love with a rich, handsome, caring, charismatic gentleman. Whatever could go amiss?
Hugh’s elaborate lies keep trying to unravel and the secondary characters do an excellent job of helping them come to light. Minerva brings her sisters with her as a caveat to their arrangement. One sister is immature and keeps throwing fits while another sister is cynical and believes Hugh will either kill them or seduce her sister. The actress he hired to play the girl’s mother is very method and very much a drunkard. And his best friend is watching the wreckage in complete rapture waiting to tell him “I told you so!”
The plot was predictable and I loved every minute of it. Of course these two would end up falling for each other and have many misunderstandings on the way. But the journey was fun. It was funny and sweet and I have a feeling there will be a sequel. Perhaps with Hugh’s best friend Giles and Minerva’s sister Diana? I sure hope so, because I’ll read the heck out of that.
Special thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for releasing this ARC to me in exchange for an honest review.
This was a cute little read for book club! Fun characters and a classic rom com storyline in a Regency setting. I must admit I was really annoyed with the male lead's "reason" for relational conflict... "his tainted Standish blood" Sir, infidelity is not hereditary.
I've given this a B- at AAR, so that's 3.5 stars
Virginia Heath has been one of my favourite authors of historical romance since I read her second book ([b:Her Enemy at the Altar|30338093|Her Enemy at the Altar|Virginia Heath|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1467576559l/30338093._SY75_.jpg|49945500]) for Mills & Boon/Harlequin back in 2016. Her stories are generally light-hearted and a lot of fun although not without a more serious side, her characters are well-rounded and engaging, her prose is crisp and the humour never feels forced. Never Fall for Your Fiancée, the first book in her new Merriwell Sisters trilogy, is her first book for St. Martin’s Press, and it bears all the hallmarks of her style - a gorgeous hero, an intelligent and snarky heroine who won’t put up with any crap, sparking dialogue and genuinely witty banter - although it’s a tad overlong and the chemistry between the two principals isn’t quite as compelling as I know she’s capable of delivering. The plot isn’t going to win any prizes for originality, but Ms. Heath makes good use of the fake-relationship trope and her bright and breezy writing style carries the day.
Hugh Standish, Earl of Fareham, is in a bit of a bind. His mother, who lives in Boston with her second husband, is on her way to England for a visit expressly to meet Hugh’s fiancée Minerva, the young woman to whom he’s been engaged for the past two years. The problem? Minerva is entirely a product of Hugh’s imagination, invented in order to head off his mother’s constant reminders that he should get married and her offer (which Hugh saw more as a threat) to come home to help him find a bride. Hugh adores his mother, but he is absolutely convinced that a man should only enter into a marriage when he had every intention of honouring his vows, and being sure he isn’t capable of either love or fidelity, he has decided to eschew matrimony. But his mother’s arrival is imminent, and the idea of telling her the truth weighs heavily. He never, ever wanted to hurt her and, if he’s honest with himself (which he tries hard not to be too often), he also wants to avoid admitting to her that he’s far too much like his late father to consider settling down.
Minerva Merriwell has been the family caretaker since their mother died when Minerva was nine, and has been solely responsible for her younger sisters Diana and Vee (short for Venus) since their good-for-nothing father abandoned them when she was nineteen. Now twenty-four, Minerva ekes out a living as an engraver but it’s a hand-to-mouth existence and her worries are never-ending. Today’s is that one of the people she’s produced work for is four weeks late with payment; she’s confronted him outside his house to request – politely – that he pay her right away and things are deteriorating when a gentleman steps in and offers his assistance. The bluster displayed by Minerva’s ‘employer’ can’t hold up in the face of the stranger’s aristocratic hauteur; the debt is settled and the gentleman offers to escort her home.
Hugh can’t believe his good fortune. Not only does this young woman share the name of his fake fiancée, she’s entirely captivating – beautiful, witty and self-assured – and on the spot, he decides the answer to his problem is right in front of him. He’ll pay Minerva to act as his fiancée, and then engineer some sort of falling-out that will end their ‘engagement’. But he’s surprised when Minerva expresses reservations. It’s clear she needs the money he’s offering, but she’s not happy about the idea of practicing such a deception; the Merriwells may be on the cusp of destitution, but they had morals.
Well, of course Minerva does agree and she – with Diana and Vee, who are as unhappy about the scheme as Minerva is – travel to Hugh’s Hampshire estate to await the arrival of his mother and to learn their roles while they wait. Unfortunately, however, Hugh’s mother and step-father arrive much earlier than expected – well before Minerva has acquired enough ‘polish’ – which necessitates some more impromptu, highly creative falsehoods on Hugh’s part. The story moves fairly briskly, the central characters are likeable and the humour is dry and nicely observed, but around the middle, it gets a bit bogged down and some of the contortions Hugh has to make in order to perpetuate his lies get a bit overly convoluted, and I sometimes felt as though I was in the middle of a French farce. Perhaps that was the intention, but although I’ve said that the humour in Ms. Heath’s books isn’t forced, it comes close a few times here.
Minerva is a great heroine, a young woman forced to become a parent when she wasn’t much more than a child herself and who puts her own wants and needs last every time. She’s intelligent, witty, generous and determined, but she’s grown so used to being her sisters’ sole support that she has sort of lost sight of the fact that they’re young women now, and should be taking responsibility for themselves. I liked Hugh a lot, with some caveats. He’s charming, funny, perceptive and caring, but he goes out of his way to act the indolent wastrel (not that we ever see that on the page) when he is in fact a conscientious landowner and employer, and an all-round decent man. It doesn’t take Minerva long to work out that there’s a lot more to him than meets the eye, but what she can’t work out is why he’s so set on letting everyone around him believe he’s shallow, selfish and lazy. (And quite honestly, neither could I.) BUT – and here are the caveats. Firstly, he is convinced he’s bad husband material because the Standish Blood Runs In His Veins; his grandfather was a rotten bastard, his father was unfaithful to his mother, and Hugh isn’t going to visit heartbreak upon any woman – like his cheating sire and grandfather before him, he isn’t capable of love or commitment. This is stated so very often that I felt I was being hit over the head with it; I lost track of how many times the “bad blood” or the “Standish way” or the philandering grandfather and father were mentioned. A grown man of thirty-two is responsible for his own behaviour, and Hugh was perfectly capable of steering his own course. And then there’s the deception. As Minerva says – “What sort of man invents a fiancée because he finds responsibility too daunting and is frightened of his own mother?” And that says it all, really.
There’s a small but well-drawn supporting cast. Hugh’s mother is a delightful woman who obviously thinks the world of him and just wants him to be happy, Payne, the butler is a nineteenth century Jeeves –an expert in the pithy bon mot – and I liked Hugh’s friend Giles, who I’m assuming will be the hero of a future book in the series. I liked the middle sister, Diana, who is lively and forthright (and there are definite sparks between her and Giles) although Vee is… well, a bit of a wet blanket, honestly. She’s still convinced their dead-beat dad is going to come back and won’t hear a word against him, and she presents a number of problems for Hugh’s scheme.
That said, Never Fall for Your Fiancée is fluff of the highest quality, and if you’re looking for a well-written, funny historical rom-com with some shrewd observation on the side, it might be just what you’re looking for. But I can’t recommend it unreservedly, because much as I liked Hugh, I didn’t buy the reasons for his ‘I am not worthy’ act and all the miscommunication and misinterpretation became a bit wearing. I like the fake-relationship trope, and I like Ms. Heath’s writing, but this one didn’t quite tick all the boxes for me.
Virginia Heath has been one of my favourite authors of historical romance since I read her second book ([b:Her Enemy at the Altar|30338093|Her Enemy at the Altar|Virginia Heath|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1467576559l/30338093._SY75_.jpg|49945500]) for Mills & Boon/Harlequin back in 2016. Her stories are generally light-hearted and a lot of fun although not without a more serious side, her characters are well-rounded and engaging, her prose is crisp and the humour never feels forced. Never Fall for Your Fiancée, the first book in her new Merriwell Sisters trilogy, is her first book for St. Martin’s Press, and it bears all the hallmarks of her style - a gorgeous hero, an intelligent and snarky heroine who won’t put up with any crap, sparking dialogue and genuinely witty banter - although it’s a tad overlong and the chemistry between the two principals isn’t quite as compelling as I know she’s capable of delivering. The plot isn’t going to win any prizes for originality, but Ms. Heath makes good use of the fake-relationship trope and her bright and breezy writing style carries the day.
Hugh Standish, Earl of Fareham, is in a bit of a bind. His mother, who lives in Boston with her second husband, is on her way to England for a visit expressly to meet Hugh’s fiancée Minerva, the young woman to whom he’s been engaged for the past two years. The problem? Minerva is entirely a product of Hugh’s imagination, invented in order to head off his mother’s constant reminders that he should get married and her offer (which Hugh saw more as a threat) to come home to help him find a bride. Hugh adores his mother, but he is absolutely convinced that a man should only enter into a marriage when he had every intention of honouring his vows, and being sure he isn’t capable of either love or fidelity, he has decided to eschew matrimony. But his mother’s arrival is imminent, and the idea of telling her the truth weighs heavily. He never, ever wanted to hurt her and, if he’s honest with himself (which he tries hard not to be too often), he also wants to avoid admitting to her that he’s far too much like his late father to consider settling down.
Minerva Merriwell has been the family caretaker since their mother died when Minerva was nine, and has been solely responsible for her younger sisters Diana and Vee (short for Venus) since their good-for-nothing father abandoned them when she was nineteen. Now twenty-four, Minerva ekes out a living as an engraver but it’s a hand-to-mouth existence and her worries are never-ending. Today’s is that one of the people she’s produced work for is four weeks late with payment; she’s confronted him outside his house to request – politely – that he pay her right away and things are deteriorating when a gentleman steps in and offers his assistance. The bluster displayed by Minerva’s ‘employer’ can’t hold up in the face of the stranger’s aristocratic hauteur; the debt is settled and the gentleman offers to escort her home.
Hugh can’t believe his good fortune. Not only does this young woman share the name of his fake fiancée, she’s entirely captivating – beautiful, witty and self-assured – and on the spot, he decides the answer to his problem is right in front of him. He’ll pay Minerva to act as his fiancée, and then engineer some sort of falling-out that will end their ‘engagement’. But he’s surprised when Minerva expresses reservations. It’s clear she needs the money he’s offering, but she’s not happy about the idea of practicing such a deception; the Merriwells may be on the cusp of destitution, but they had morals.
Well, of course Minerva does agree and she – with Diana and Vee, who are as unhappy about the scheme as Minerva is – travel to Hugh’s Hampshire estate to await the arrival of his mother and to learn their roles while they wait. Unfortunately, however, Hugh’s mother and step-father arrive much earlier than expected – well before Minerva has acquired enough ‘polish’ – which necessitates some more impromptu, highly creative falsehoods on Hugh’s part. The story moves fairly briskly, the central characters are likeable and the humour is dry and nicely observed, but around the middle, it gets a bit bogged down and some of the contortions Hugh has to make in order to perpetuate his lies get a bit overly convoluted, and I sometimes felt as though I was in the middle of a French farce. Perhaps that was the intention, but although I’ve said that the humour in Ms. Heath’s books isn’t forced, it comes close a few times here.
Minerva is a great heroine, a young woman forced to become a parent when she wasn’t much more than a child herself and who puts her own wants and needs last every time. She’s intelligent, witty, generous and determined, but she’s grown so used to being her sisters’ sole support that she has sort of lost sight of the fact that they’re young women now, and should be taking responsibility for themselves. I liked Hugh a lot, with some caveats. He’s charming, funny, perceptive and caring, but he goes out of his way to act the indolent wastrel (not that we ever see that on the page) when he is in fact a conscientious landowner and employer, and an all-round decent man. It doesn’t take Minerva long to work out that there’s a lot more to him than meets the eye, but what she can’t work out is why he’s so set on letting everyone around him believe he’s shallow, selfish and lazy. (And quite honestly, neither could I.) BUT – and here are the caveats. Firstly, he is convinced he’s bad husband material because the Standish Blood Runs In His Veins; his grandfather was a rotten bastard, his father was unfaithful to his mother, and Hugh isn’t going to visit heartbreak upon any woman – like his cheating sire and grandfather before him, he isn’t capable of love or commitment. This is stated so very often that I felt I was being hit over the head with it; I lost track of how many times the “bad blood” or the “Standish way” or the philandering grandfather and father were mentioned. A grown man of thirty-two is responsible for his own behaviour, and Hugh was perfectly capable of steering his own course. And then there’s the deception. As Minerva says – “What sort of man invents a fiancée because he finds responsibility too daunting and is frightened of his own mother?” And that says it all, really.
There’s a small but well-drawn supporting cast. Hugh’s mother is a delightful woman who obviously thinks the world of him and just wants him to be happy, Payne, the butler is a nineteenth century Jeeves –an expert in the pithy bon mot – and I liked Hugh’s friend Giles, who I’m assuming will be the hero of a future book in the series. I liked the middle sister, Diana, who is lively and forthright (and there are definite sparks between her and Giles) although Vee is… well, a bit of a wet blanket, honestly. She’s still convinced their dead-beat dad is going to come back and won’t hear a word against him, and she presents a number of problems for Hugh’s scheme.
That said, Never Fall for Your Fiancée is fluff of the highest quality, and if you’re looking for a well-written, funny historical rom-com with some shrewd observation on the side, it might be just what you’re looking for. But I can’t recommend it unreservedly, because much as I liked Hugh, I didn’t buy the reasons for his ‘I am not worthy’ act and all the miscommunication and misinterpretation became a bit wearing. I like the fake-relationship trope, and I like Ms. Heath’s writing, but this one didn’t quite tick all the boxes for me.
lighthearted
slow-paced
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
incredibly lackluster and overwhelmingly dependent on hetero-normativity. I cannot believe minerva would actually fall for this guy