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A review by caitlin_bookchats
Something in the Heir by Suzanne Enoch
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
To be fair, I went into this book extremely wary of the premise. Using children just long enough to keep an inheritance? Even if the point was that the couple would grow and see them as actually human beings, it's still starting your book by having your couple dig themselves a hole.
But I also thought it might be an opportunity for a relatively rare couple dynamic. A marriage of convenience where the man is secretly in love and the woman thinks it's just a business arrangement. The book is just too jam packed with things happening to really properly show any of that growth though.
The realization that our couple do maybe actually want to be parents was perhaps the best developed but it still contained a lot of have wavey "they're rapscallions but of course they can't trust us and they bring us joy."
The way working as a team to parent (kind of) the kids helps Will and Emmeline to see each other in a new light is so underdeveloped the I almost missed when they actually admitted they were interested in each other as more than business partners.
I don't think the book had to be open door or more explicit, but the emotional development was just not there?
And the threat of the dastardly brother, thrown in for conflict and an outside threat, really distracted from what I wanted which was the development of this family and their life towards each other.
I will say that perhaps the best thing for readers might be that even when they resolve they're relationship, at least at the end of the book there is no magical pregnancy planted by the power of love. Wherever fertility struggles Emmeline had do seen to persist even after she and Will become adoptive parents. (Even this! Underdeveloped! What are Emmeline's and Will's feelings around their struggles to have children???)
Anyway, ymmv but I was frustrated.
But I also thought it might be an opportunity for a relatively rare couple dynamic. A marriage of convenience where the man is secretly in love and the woman thinks it's just a business arrangement. The book is just too jam packed with things happening to really properly show any of that growth though.
The realization that our couple do maybe actually want to be parents was perhaps the best developed but it still contained a lot of have wavey "they're rapscallions but of course they can't trust us and they bring us joy."
The way working as a team to parent (kind of) the kids helps Will and Emmeline to see each other in a new light is so underdeveloped the I almost missed when they actually admitted they were interested in each other as more than business partners.
I don't think the book had to be open door or more explicit, but the emotional development was just not there?
And the threat of the dastardly brother, thrown in for conflict and an outside threat, really distracted from what I wanted which was the development of this family and their life towards each other.
I will say that perhaps the best thing for readers might be that even when they resolve they're relationship, at least at the end of the book there is no magical pregnancy planted by the power of love. Wherever fertility struggles Emmeline had do seen to persist even after she and Will become adoptive parents. (Even this! Underdeveloped! What are Emmeline's and Will's feelings around their struggles to have children???)
Anyway, ymmv but I was frustrated.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Classism, Abandonment, Bullying, and Death of parent
Minor: Infertility