Hannah Pym is off on one of her adventures again. This time she’s headed toward Dover, and as before, her mind immediately turns to matchmaking. At first, she decides to do something about the plain, depressed girl on her way to Dover to marry a man more than twice her age, Abigail. But when her coach runs into trouble, she turns her hand to match making between the tomboyish Deborah and the very stiff and staid Earl of Ashton. Matters are further complicated when her footman’s, Benjamin, propensity for gambling lands him in serious debt and the only way he can get out of it is to win a fight against London’s supreme pugilist. Just what is a servant turned lady of leisure going to do? And what is this about someone from Hannah’s most recent adventures resurfacing…
There is a whole lot going on in this book, but somehow Marion Chesney manages to weave seven or eight different stories including three romances together deftly. As in some of the previous books, the titular character Deborah has a romance that is less flushed out then some of the other characters, but unlike previous books I’m not sure she needed the help of Miss Pym anyway. There is a stronger romance between two of the coach passengers, the aforementioned Abigail and a captain returning from the Napoleonic wars, which honestly I found more interesting. I also found one of the plots sort of handwaved away. It probably shouldn’t have been in this book, but there it was. *shrugs*
Honestly this book is fun; it’s a sweet regency romance with all sorts of shenanigans and fun times that’s appropriate for pretty much all ages.
My only real complaint is that there was too much going on for a book this short. As a note, this is a very old school romance and as such features a fully third person omniscient POV. It can take some getting used to. But it didn’t detract from my enjoyment.
Four stars
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