Review

April is the month of unpredictable heroines, and McQuiston’s Julianne Baxter is a bundle of surprise.

I first came across her in McQuiston’s Summer is for Lovers. I didn’t like Julianne and honestly believed her to be a villain of the first order. Who knew that underneath that shallow, attention-seeking exterior lie a woman filled with remorse and eager to right past wrongs? I didn’t think so.

Then comes Julianne traipsing across England and Scotland desperate to bring home our hero, Patrick, whom she’d accused of murder a mere year before. From there it’s a hop, skip, and a three-legged dog to a leg shackle. With Julianne and Patrick bound for the immediate future and forced to face his family, his inheritance, and all the scandal that goes along with it.

This book started off slow, and it took a while to warm up to Julianne, who outside of her guilt, kept up this pretense of not communicating her feelings. Patrick is just as guilty and too often did I feel a simple conversation would help both of them understand everything. I don’t enjoy characters who can’t talk to each other and for me that tends to lower my enthusiasm for the romance. I also find that when a hero or heroine doubts their love interest after the halfway point in a book I can’t honestly believe in an HEA.

This book also has a suspense element, which kept me on my toes. I will say McQuiston may have a future in historical suspense because I didn’t figure out the villain until it was revealed. The secondary characters have a unique spark and honestly I hope at least one of them gets his own story.

Overall this story had a ton of potential, but fell flat for me compared to McQuiston’s previous books. I found myself angry at everyone, including the hero, for treating Julianne like she was incapable for being intelligent or trustworthy—after more than halfway through the story; though the suspense and surprise villain redeemed some of the story for me.

Reviewed by Landra