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A review by turophile
As an Earl Desires by Lorraine Heath
3.0
The hero, Archie, is an accident heir to the peerage. Raised in a comfortable and happy middle class home as the son of a school master, he is elevated to the Earl of Sachse when the previous earl dies without Issue. The widowed Lady Sachse who married the formal earl at the age of 16 takes it upon herself to teach him the ways of nobility and to find him an appropriate wife who can bear him a child. She believes that she is barren is searching for a widowed Duke who already has issue to marry. Yet Archie quickly decides that he wants her.
The plot is slight. Camilla attempts to hide a variety of secrets: she’s not a calculating social climber, instead she puts up a facade that hides her early life of poverty and her current acts of charity. There are two secrets that she believes she can never reveal to the earl: her illiteracy and the fact that her previous husband beat her with a riding crop leaving tiny scars all over her body. The development of attraction and love between the two through the slow unveiling of these secrets to Archie (and at times to society) is the main focus.
Several aspects of the story made it a pleasant but unsatisfying read for me. The main characters were almost too perfect, even with the “flaws” written into the heroine’s character. Camilla’s attitude toward her secrets was puzzling at times. Early on, she feared that her commoner background would be uncovered by the Marlborough set and that she’d be cast out from society. I would think that background would have been known when she married the elder Earl, because she’s not in any peerage books. Then Camilla tells Archie she has two secrets she can never share (nothing like waiving a red flag in front of a bull). Her illiteracy had been made known, but the second - the beatings by her husband- were a puzzling choice of literary device. The way the story had built up the “secrets” I thought it would be her commoner background/early life of poverty, but concerns about that secret were dropped. Instead, it was the scars she bore from her deceased husband beating her. A horror no doubt, but the way it was built up it seemed to be used as a device for making Archie even more angry about the way Camilla had been treated than as something that required secrecy.
And then, a plot twist that I wasn’t expecting, the deceased earl’s son turns out to be alive in America which means Archie is no longer and earl, so it’s no longer important that he marry someone who can give him an heir and a spare. Yet Camilla struggles because she still wants an earl. That newly found heir was a surprise, but you can guess where the story goes from there.
A pleasant but somewhat unsatisfyin read for me.
The plot is slight. Camilla attempts to hide a variety of secrets: she’s not a calculating social climber, instead she puts up a facade that hides her early life of poverty and her current acts of charity. There are two secrets that she believes she can never reveal to the earl: her illiteracy and the fact that her previous husband beat her with a riding crop leaving tiny scars all over her body. The development of attraction and love between the two through the slow unveiling of these secrets to Archie (and at times to society) is the main focus.
Several aspects of the story made it a pleasant but unsatisfying read for me. The main characters were almost too perfect, even with the “flaws” written into the heroine’s character. Camilla’s attitude toward her secrets was puzzling at times. Early on, she feared that her commoner background would be uncovered by the Marlborough set and that she’d be cast out from society. I would think that background would have been known when she married the elder Earl, because she’s not in any peerage books. Then Camilla tells Archie she has two secrets she can never share (nothing like waiving a red flag in front of a bull). Her illiteracy had been made known, but the second - the beatings by her husband- were a puzzling choice of literary device. The way the story had built up the “secrets” I thought it would be her commoner background/early life of poverty, but concerns about that secret were dropped. Instead, it was the scars she bore from her deceased husband beating her. A horror no doubt, but the way it was built up it seemed to be used as a device for making Archie even more angry about the way Camilla had been treated than as something that required secrecy.
And then, a plot twist that I wasn’t expecting, the deceased earl’s son turns out to be alive in America which means Archie is no longer and earl, so it’s no longer important that he marry someone who can give him an heir and a spare. Yet Camilla struggles because she still wants an earl. That newly found heir was a surprise, but you can guess where the story goes from there.
A pleasant but somewhat unsatisfyin read for me.