“Miss Hillary Schools a Scoundrel” by Samantha Grace (historical, Sourcebooks, February 2012, $6.99, 412pp): How do I talk about “Miss Hillary Schools a Scoundrel,” Samantha Grace’s debut historical romance? I don’t really know. I had a very difficult time reading this book. While it had a strong setup and characters I thought were great together (well, at first), the central source of conflict between the hero and the heroine was The Big Misunderstanding – ok, really The Big Misunderstandings that happened again and again and again. The story showed such promise but that promise was not realized.
Thus begins a sometimes dizzying on again/off again relationship between Lana and Drew. Drew pursues the shy Lana. Lana responds to Drew’s flirting. Lana boldly decides to make love with Drew – after having been nearly kidnapped and telling Drew that she was not a virgin (which she was). No, she doesn’t want Drew to marry her under duress, but she does have feelings for him. They decide to marry, but must keep their plans secret because Lana’s brother hates Drew. They agree to marry again. Drew gets permission to court Lana from her father, but Lana is still hesitant to publicize the news. Lana tells Drew he must talk to and make peace with Lady Amelia, a woman who he once led on – then Lana gets jealous. They agree to marry again. This goes on and on. And, she actually gets kidnapped on her wedding day!
Interestingly, I really liked the characters when they were together without their interfering family members or weren’t dealing with the should-we-or-shouldn’t-we debate. Their courtship was sweet, but could have been so much more. And this sentence unfortunately sums up my overall reaction to “Miss Hillary Schools a Scoundrel” – it could have been so much more. I do plan to try Samantha Grace’s next story “Lady Amelia’s Mess and a Half” featuring Lady Amelia (yes, the aforementioned Lady Amelia) and Lana’s moody brother Jake, because I did like Grace's writing style.
Buy this book from Amazon now!
Author Link: http://samanthagraceauthor.com/
Like Samantha Grace on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/samanthagraceromanceauthor#!/pages/Samantha-Grace/264436686918343
Follow Samantha Grace on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SamGraceAuthor
Book Disclosure: A copy of this book was provided by the publisher
