NEVER BORROW A BARONET By Regina Scott

 

 

This historical, the second in the Fortune’s Bride Series by award-winning author Regina Scott, entertained me and kept me guessing! Regina has a knack for inventing characters we can all identify with—some we like and some, not so much! Thankfully, I really like the main characters. Fortune, the cat, plays a larger role in this book and I smiled through those scenes!

Everyone from Gussie to Beau Villers to the main characters—Patience Ramsey and Sir Harry Orwell as well as those secondary characters sprinkled between the lines, made this a fun and interesting novel. I like the setting and time period—Essex, England, March 1812. There is just something about slipping into the past and watching characters duck in and out of the social expectations and bondage to make choices that can loosen those restraints for them to become a bit more free and courageous!

This story was precious, complete with the family crest “To risk is to live.” I loved the special interest that Miss Augusta Orwell, Henry’s Aunt Gussie, drew the women into assisting her with. This is a sweet romance, clean and winsome and I highly recommend this book and series so far! I did receive this novel for free to offer me the opportunity to review this. I only post reviews on the books that I can recommend highly. Every book and author has a reader. I tend to be a bit picky in my reviews for I want others to have a reading experience that they can’t put down.

 Questions for Regina:

1.      I loved the theme in this novel about concern for reputations. What inspired that focus for this novel?

 

In the Regency period, sometimes a lady’s reputation was all she had. If her family was poor or somehow lost their income, if she wasn’t particularly beautiful or talented, knowing she was a lady of virtue might still be enough to attract a gentleman’s attentions. While Patience Ramsey, my heroine, is quite pretty, she doesn’t think of herself that way. She holds her reputation dear, so when a false engagement to Harry comes up, she has to consider the price very, very carefully.

2.      This novel and Never Doubt a Duke have lovely covers. Did you design those?

 

I did not. My talent seems to be with words, not design. The wonderful Kim Killion at the Killion Group designs all my covers. The pictures of the ladies themselves are from Period Images.

 

3.      I love the character Lydia Villers. Will she be in a future novel? (My mind is inventing her future. 😉

 

I’m so glad you enjoyed Lydia! She is near to my heart too. Lydia plays a small role in the next book, Never Envy an Earl, and she gets her own book this fall in Never Vie for a Viscount.

 

4.      Was a host or hostess really so accommodating to visitors in this time period? (We authors would hate that—we like our writing time and reflection time don’t we!)

 

Yes, we do! I don’t think I could have been as accommodating as Gussie. I’m sure there were some in the Regency period who simply let it be known they did not entertain, but it wasn’t uncommon among the upper class to be invited toward the end of the summer and into the hunting season to stay at anywhere from two weeks to a month with your host at his/her country estate. Sometimes dozens of guests would be invited. It sounds like a lot, but consider the fact that Chatsworth, the home of the Dukes of Devonshire, has 250 rooms!

 

5.      I’d just watched A&E’s C. S. Forester’s Horatio Hornblower movie. This provided time for me to reflect on a side of Napoleon that I’d not known. Was the tension between England and France a deciding point for why you wrote in this time period?

 

Yes. Napoleon makes for such a wonderful villain. 😊 And it was a tense time in England. Slightly before the Regency, about 1805, there was terrible fear of invasion. Even though the French never found a way to bring troops across the Channel, many in England couldn’t forget the threat. Napoleon, Old Boney to some, was the monster under the bed. Children were told to behave, or he would come for them. He was burned in effigy every Guy Fawkes Day. Bringing him down was the goal of many an Englishman.

 

6.      Is there anything else you would like to share about this novel?

 

It was a lot of fun planning for “the worst house party in the history of England,” as one of my characters calls it. I love a swashbuckling hero, and Sir Harry with his spying and climbing in windows and proposing marriage on a whim and utter devotion to his beloved aunt Gussie, certainly qualified.

 

7.      How do you wish for your readers to contact you?

       www.reginascott.com * newsletter signup www.eepurl.com/baqwVT

           Thank you so much, Sue! I appreciate how you share books with readers!

Never Doubt a Duke, Book 1 in the new Fortune’s Brides series, 5/18/18
Never Borrow a Baronet, Book 2 in the Fortune’s Brides series, 6/13/18