“When Amelia Moore is invited to London for the social season, she hopes for a chance at love--but certainly not with Jeremy Beaumont, the season's most sought-after bachelor. Upon making the acquaintance of his sister Juliet at her first ball, Amelia becomes fast friends with her, but Jeremy's protective nature leads him to question her motives and wrongly accuse Amelia of using his sister to capture his attention and fortune. Outraged at his arrogance, Amelia vows never to speak to him again, which proves a more difficult feat than she anticipated.
As Amelia attracts the attention of other wealthy gentlemen, Jeremy becomes concerned for her welfare and feels compelled to warn her away from certain suitors. When unexpected circumstances heighten the friction between them, Amelia and Jeremy are forced to confront their undeniable attraction--and discover whether their battle of wills has actually been a dance toward love.”
Series: Seems to be a stand-alone novel.
Spiritual Content- A few Scriptures are mentioned, remembered, & quoted; Prayers & Thanking God; A few talks about God & praying; 'H’s are not capital when referring to God or Jesus; Mentions of God, Jesus, God’s will, God’s vengeance on a man for his actions, & forgiveness; Mentions of prayers, praying, & thanking God; Mentions of churches, church going, rectors/clergymen, & sermons; A few mentions of those & events in the Bible; A couple mentions of salvation; A couple mentions of Christians; A mention of the Bible; A mention of a possible missionary who was killed by a pagan tribe; A mention of a cross necklace; A mention of being blessed; A mention of wishing someone godspeed;
*Note: Religious phrases: a ‘for heaven’s sake’ and a ‘heavens’; Mentions of evil men and their evil intentions (towards women); A mention of a good omen.
Negative Content- Minor cussing including: a form of ‘shut up’; Some eye rolling & sarcasm; Punching & Threatening someone (physically and with a duel, up to semi-detailed); Pain, Injuries, & Blood/Bleeding (barely-above-not-detailed); Viewing a “shrunken head” in a museum (barely-above-not-detailed); Drinking ale (Jeremy, once); Many mentions of gossip & rumors; Mentions of deaths & grief (including for parents and spouses); Mentions of duels, possible deaths/killings, & the guilt of having someone’s blood/death on his hands; Mentions of wanting to physically harm someone who hurt a woman (Jeremy and other men want to punch or kill a man for his actions against a woman); Mentions of injuries, pain, & blood/bleeding (barely-above-not-detailed); Mentions of threats & blackmail; Mentions of lies & lying; Mentions of alcohol, drinking, & drunks; Mentions of gambling; Mentions of hunting; A few mentions of wars; A few mentions of thieves, stealing, & stolen items; A few mentions of throwing up & vomit; A few mentions of hatred; A mention of divorce;
*Note: A mention of a woman having several stillbirths; A mention of a boy being called a “gypsy” due to his Spanish heritage.
Sexual Content- Two hand kisses, three semi-detailed kisses, and a border-line semi-detailed // detailed kiss; Wanting to kiss/being kissed & embraced (often in the last half of the book, up to semi-detailed); Thinking about kissing & Talking about kissing/kisses (up to semi-detailed); Touches, Embraces, Dancing, Hand holding, Warmth, Tingles/Flutters, Nearness, & Smelling (up to semi-detailed); Blushes & Flirting; Noticing & Staring (up to semi-detailed); *Major Spoilers* Past halfway through, Amelia and Jeremy kiss at a party when alone and are caught by a group of others, so he proposes to her; Amelia isn’t sure about marrying him, but does enjoy kissing him and thinks of it often; Jeremy wasn’t sure he loved Amelia until they kissed and now wants to marry her; Jeremy vows to himself to not kiss her (for a third time) while she’s deciding on marrying him; While she thinks about their kisses often and wants to kiss again, she tells him not to kiss her until they’ve decided or not to get married because he “scrambles [her] thoughts” when he kisses her; Later when alone in a carriage with him, Amelia tells Jeremy that they shouldn’t kiss (which he agrees) and she has a war inside herself about it, calling herself “prudish” and remembering how good it was to kiss him and that there was “no harm” in kissing him (regardless, they do not kiss in the carriage this time, but are implied to have kissed a lot in the carriage ride after getting married and are pregnant shortly after getting married) *End of Spoilers*; A side character comments that it doesn’t “seem fair” that she can’t have “a little kiss” without people saying she did something terrible (and thus ruin her reputation); A side character (a young woman) goes off with a man for some time and it causes damage to her reputation (At first she says nothing happened, but *Spoilers, but about sexual assault* later reveals that the man threatened her to marry him, kissed her, grabbed her chest, and when she tried to stop him, he slapped her (border-line barely-above-not-detailed // semi-detailed of the girl telling Amelia about it); The friend feels ashamed and to blamed, but Amelia tell her not to be because it wasn’t her fault and God will get revenge on the evil man for what he did to her; When Jeremy finds out later, he physically threatens a friend of the man’s for spreading rumors about his sister and plans a duel with the evil man for molested her; The man later spreads rumors about the girl being with child and/or was with him all night, so Jeremy goes and plans a duel again, but another man makes the assualter sign a paper to admit to spreading the rumors *End of Spoilers*; Amelia goes into a room at a ball and sees a couple kissing “quite passionately” (she quickly leaves; up to semi-detailed); Amelia and Jeremy get involved in a maid’s life when she is said to be pregnant out of wedlock by a previous male guest (*Spoilers* The father of the child has disregarded the woman, but Jeremy makes him take responsibility and provide for the woman and the child *End of Spoilers*); Many mentions of kisses, kissing, & being in love; Many mentions of chaperones, reputations, women not being alone with a man, & women being ruined due to rumors of being alone with a man; Mentions of men taking advantage of women & possibly getting them pregnant; Mentions of men keeping mistresses/paramours; Mentions of men’s “immoral behaviors” that involve affairs/mistresses, getting young women pregnant out of wedlock, & having to pay the women or marry her; Mentions of a woman throwing herself at Jeremy and trying to kiss him; Mentions of flirts, flirting, & attraction; A few mentions of jealousy; A couple mentions of a law being repealed about punishing a woman who bears a child out of wedlock (which Amelia and her friend are glad it is repealed as a woman “might become pregnant through no fault of her own—someone forcing himself upon her”); Love, falling in love, & the emotions;
*Note: Amelia’s mother suggests to her about marrying her cousin and when Amelia protests at the thought, her mother says there’s nothing wrong with it.
-Amelia Moore, age 22
-Jeremy Beaumont
P.O.V. switches between them (Amelia in 1st person, Jeremy in 3rd person)
Set in 1811
304 pages
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Pre Teens-
New Teens-
Early High School Teens-
Older High School Teens-
My personal Rating-
I have mixed feelings about this book. I liked the plot and characters a bit more than the author’s previous book, “The Good Fortune of Miss Robbins”, but there are some content concerns about this story for teen readers that ultimately affected my rating and the ages I would suggest it to. I would say my thoughts and comments about this book is very comparable to that previous book, but there were mentions of a sexual assault and a lot about kisses/kissing that brought down my ratings.
As a note, as far as I could tell, this book isn’t connecting to the “The Good Fortune of Miss Robbins” and I do not recognize any of the names mentioned on the back cover of the next regency book that is coming out by this author. It seems like they are all stand-alone books and not affiliated with each other despite releasing in a close time-frame and having similar pretty covers.
I really liked all of Amelia’s siblings and seeing them interact together as she is the oldest girl of twelve children. Seeing all of the big family elements in a regency setting was definitely my favorite part of this book—even if it was only at the very beginning and very end.
As far as our main characters, I liked Amelia well enough, though I wished she would have been described in other ways besides “good” and “lovely” which she was called multiple times. She rambles and cries a lot, but has a good heart. Jeremy is kind of a jerk at first, so when his change towards her happens, it felt a little out of left-field. Similar to how I felt about the not-connecting previous book, because of the Female Main Character’s chapters being written in first person, it seemed like a diary at times with her thoughts being added into the story. Some of them just felt silly and worded in an odd way, which distracted me while reading.
They seemed to be a good couple by the end, but I do want to give a caution about this book for teen readers due to the fact that their feelings become known to themselves after sharing a kiss. Once this kiss happens, they often think about kissing and wanting to kiss the other. While there were hints to them possibly tolerating each other better by that point (as they didn’t like each other at all at first), I think their emotions were heightened after sharing a kiss and it affected their reasoning and proper senses. Amelia admits this at one point (which I was glad to see), but continues wanting to kiss him despite not knowing what the future would be for them. I don’t think that is the best example for teen girls. Prior to this, Amelia thought herself in love with a couple other men (two separate times; after quickly falling for them after a few meetings) and was pretty devastated and sobbing when it didn’t work out. I didn’t care for much of the romance content of this book, particularly because of all the longing to kiss/be kissed and the emotions it brought up.
Along with all these parts of wanting to kiss the other, there’s quite a bit about men forcing themselves on women and a sexual assault that happens to a side character. An important side character is assaulted and feels ashamed by what happened, which became a bigger part of the book than I was expecting.
There was a bit more faith content than I had expected, mainly on Amelia’s end. I would have liked to see more and Jeremy’s faith because there wasn’t much in that regard. I would have enjoyed seeing them discuss their faiths before considering the other as a potential lifelong spouse.
See y’all on Friday with a new review!
*BFCG may (Read the review to see) recommend this book by this author. It does not mean I recommend all the books by this author.
*I received this book for free from the Author for this honest review.
