The Kiss That Made Her Countess by Laura Martin

Tracy’s rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Series: A Season of Celebration, #3

Release Date: June 25, 2024

Miss Alice James is not normally reckless, but with the prospect of being engaged to her vile cousin Cecil, she embraces the idea of one final night of freedom and agrees to sneak into a masquerade party with her best friend Lydia. Once at the party the girls are separated and Alice meets Simon Westcroft, the Earl of Northumberland. They share a dance and then a kiss, before she runs off. The next day it comes out that they were seen, and Simon does the honorable thing and proposes. But Simon has secrets, and his proposal has conditions, most notably that he will be leaving the country within days of the wedding Alice and does not plan to ever return. But with her only other option is to marry Cecil – she accepts. She sets out to build a life for herself alone and does so for almost a year when without a word, Simon returns and upends everything. Can marriage to a stranger lead to HEA?

Simon inherited the earldom from his older brother Robert, who had been the earl for years, since the sudden death of their father – a death, that a very young Simon witnessed. Simon grieved hard for his father but thankfully he had Robert to help him through. But when just a few years after Robert married, he too suddenly passed away, Simon is adrift and lost to grief. He is sure that he too will die young and without warning, as he is suffering from headaches just like his father and brother – because of this he has decided to leave his home and die alone, to spare his family the pain of his death. He never anticipated meeting Alice and had never planned to marry, but when it becomes clear that she will be ruined unless he marries her, he proposes. But marriage changes nothing, he is still going to die, and he is even more determined to leave England. But when the headaches stop and a doctor tells him it is not his time to go, he returns home to England and a wife he hasn’t even written to in almost a year. Simon should be happy, but instead he is consumed by survivors’ guilt and refuses to try and have a happy life with Alice. Will he ever let go of his guilt and let love in or has he doomed them both to a lonely, loveless life?

I liked this book, but I don’t think I would read it again, as it was a lot more angsty than I thought it would be and I found Simon’s continuous running away to be emotionally exhausting. I understood that the author was trying to walk the reader through the process of his grief and his survivors’ guilt, and it was probably an accurate representation, but for me it was just annoying that he repeatedly refused to be happy and honestly it started to feel like a pity party. That aside, Alice was amazing, and I wanted better for her – I am not convinced that Simon won’t once again run away. One other thing that irked me – he is the Earl of Northumberland, but he referred to and called Lord Westcroft and Alice called Lady Westcroft (as well as his brother’s widow and his mother) WHY? They should be Lord and Lady Northumberland – sigh. This is my first time reading this author and while I didn’t love this story, I did like her writing style and would be willing to read more of her work in the future. If you like angst, low steam and HEA – I would suggest you give this book a read.

*I am voluntarily leaving a review for an eARC that I requested and was provided to me by the publisher. All opinions in this review are my own. *