Vows to Save Her Reputation
by Christine Merrill
Publisher & Release: Harlequin Historical, August 1, 2020
Time and setting: Regency England
Genre: Historical Romance
Length: 288 Pages
Heat Level: Mild
Rating: 5 Gold Crowns
Book Description:
His ring will rescue her
And she’ll save him from his solitudeIt’s best if Sir Robert Gascoyne remains alone. That way he protects others from the curse that has plagued his family for generations. But when an injury results in Emma Harris spending a scandalous stay at his manor, wedding bells are inevitable! After losing his first wife to childbirth, Robert won’t risk exposing Emma to the same fate. Yet resisting his stunning new bride is much harder than he’d expected…
And she’ll save him from his solitudeIt’s best if Sir Robert Gascoyne remains alone. That way he protects others from the curse that has plagued his family for generations. But when an injury results in Emma Harris spending a scandalous stay at his manor, wedding bells are inevitable! After losing his first wife to childbirth, Robert won’t risk exposing Emma to the same fate. Yet resisting his stunning new bride is much harder than he’d expected…
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Vikki’s Musings
Thanks go to the publisher and Net-Galley for the complimentary copy of Vows to Save Her Reputation by Christine Merrill for the purpose of reading and reviewing prior to publication. My opinions are my own, and no one has influenced them.
Vows to Save Her Reputation is a lovely Regency romantic story with engaging characters and a plot that will tug at your heart. The pacing is excellent, keeping me enmeshed in the story from the first page to the last. The historical details gave me enough to escape to the historical time without becoming a laundry list of Regency England.
Emma Harris’s character is a breath of fresh air. She has struggled with living up to her mother’s high standards. Emma is far from the typical debutant since she towers over the other young women and most of the gentleman. At times, she becomes the innocent victim of mishaps not of her making, but she earns a reputation of being accident prone. I could identify with her feelings of inadequacy and never being able to satisfy her mother’s expectations.
Sir Robert Gascoyne is a tortured hero, my favorite kind. He suffers from panic attacks that interfere in his life, and in the Regency period, no one had figured out what to call them and if they threatened the individual suffering from them. Robert lives in such a fear-ridden place and doesn’t know how to move beyond it. His belief in the myths his grandfather told him keeps him frozen and separated from his loved ones. I can imagine how frightening it must have been to suffer from his spells, not understanding they weren’t life-threatening.
The romance between Emma and Robert is lovely. Both struggle with domineering individuals in their childhood that keep them from becoming confident in their own skin. When they’re forced to wed, Emma loves her freedom to be who she is and the light that glows in her attracts Robert to her. He craves to be part of that aura surrounding her, but his fears of the “curse” hold him back. His growing affection for his wife concerns him, but he cannot resist her charm. I truly wanted them to find their happy ending.
If you enjoy Regency romance with characters that will touch your heart and a plot that isn’t cookie-cutter romance, then you will love Vows to Save Her Reputation as much as I did. I will be looking for more of Ms. Merrill’s amazing novels. Happy reading!
Author Bio:
Once upon a time, many years ago, when her two boys were small, and she was a stay at home mom, Christine Merrill decided it was time to fulfill her childhood dream and become a writer.
Since romance writers were obviously the easiest sort of writer to be, she would do that. And she would live the lapdog petting, chaise lounging, tiara wearing life, just like Barbara Cartland, and be happy ever after.
Years passed. She wandered in the wilderness and was punished for her hubris. She learned about writing: why it is bad to head hop, why she should have listened closer in 8th grade English on the whole ‘comflict thing’, and first hand what it was like to live stages three through eleven of the Hero’s Journey.
And then, everything changed. She won the RWA’s Golden Heart contest for unpublished manuscripts. The winning story, soon to be known as THE INCONVENIENT DUCHESS, was bought by the contest judges, the delightful editors at Mills & Boon, in Richmond, Surrey.
Chris is now living the life of her dreams which, strangely enough, is a lot like the life she always had. Her tiara is plastic and lights up if you press a button. Her chaise is an overstuffed recliner, and the labradoodle lounging on it thinks that, at seventy pounds, he is still puppy enough to sit on her lap.
Her family has kept its sense of humor about her career change. Her sons are teenagers, and emphatically do not want to know what she’s writing. Her husband is adept at dodging questions about ‘romance writing research’. Her goldfish are unimpressed by her success and her cat doesn’t give a damn either.
And she lives happily ever after.
Social Media:
Website: http://christine-merrill.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/double_cheese
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