Book Review: Someone to Love (Westcott #1)

Someone to Love
Mary Balogh
3/5

This one was weird but I give it props for attempting to diverge from a lot of the typical tropes of this genre. Anna Snow has just discovered that she's the only legitimate child of an earl and is thus entitled to all of his enormous fortune. This alienates his other three children who had lived their entire lives thinking they were legitimate, but given her a nice set up for her entrance into society. She meets Avery Archer, the Duke of Netherby, who was her brother's guardian and is now assisting this transition to society.

There were some weird things happening- the whole thing with marital arts was weirdly not descriptive. It felt like an attempt to add some diversity to the book without actually attempting any research or exposition on the character. It was nice though, that he was not a typical kind of guy and that we saw a little into the backstory about how hard it would have been for someone with a different physique to survive at this point in history.

I think another main reason why this wasn't rated lower despite how boring it felt at times was the strength of Anna Snow's character. I know that I would be terrified to enter a society which I knew nothing about but she did so with poise and grace. I appreciated that she didn't lose any part of what made her who she was, even for the sake of the plot. I don't know if that's historically accurate, I get differing opinions on how strict society actually was at this point and I think since she had so much money she'd probably have been fine.

The romance was also strange, they had very minimal interactions and then were engaged and then were eloped. Strange for it to happen like that when so much of their family was involved (and I mean a lot of characters like I couldn't keep them straight at all). It was nice at the end though, I do believe they understand each other a lot better than characters in regency romances typically do.

I don't know if I'd recommend it. It was interesting at points, but overall it was a little dull. It had its ups and downs but I don't think it was super extraordinary in anyway.