No Lady For The Lord by Collette Cameron

No Lady for the Lord, Daughters of Desire {Scandalous Ladies} series, Book 2No Lady for the Lord, Daughters of Desire {Scandalous Ladies} series, Book 2 by Collette Cameron
Barbara’s rating: 4 of 5 stars

Series: Daughters of Desire (Scandalous Ladies) #2
Publication Date: 5/12/21
Number of Pages: 280
** 4-Stars **

I thoroughly enjoyed Ronan’s and Mercy’s sweet and uplifting romance. All of the characters are lovely and certainly not what you’d normally expect from members of the aristocracy. Well – most of them aren’t what you’d expect – but three of them could probably fall in a hole and not be missed.

Miss Mercy Feathers was raised in Haven House and Academy for the Enrichment of Young Women where she learned all of the skills needed to be a governess. For the last five years, Mercy has been the governess of two beautiful young girls, Arabelle and Bellamy. Her employer, Lieutenant Lewis Masterson, is a loving father and a considerate employer – but he’s just passed away from lung fever. Things are very tense within their home because the lawyer has released no monies for the running of the household and the girls’ new guardian hasn’t bothered to show up after eight weeks. Mercy has spent all of her own savings trying to keep them all fed – but that is now gone as well. What will they do?

Lord Ronan Brockman certainly got a shock when he returned home from America to find that his friend had died – and Ronan was now the guardian of two very young girls. After a visit from a sleazy lawyer, and sordid tales told by a local barmaid, Ronan doesn’t have any idea what to expect when he arrives at the home of his new charges. Can this governess be the kind of slattern the lawyer and barmaid make her out to be?

Ronan and Mercy certainly get off to a very rocky start and neither of them knows what to expect from the other – or if they even like the other. They each know, however, that each of them cares very much about the girls and what happens to them. Can they learn to abide each other in order to care for the girls?

It was so enjoyable to watch Ronan and Mercy come to care for each other, and I also enjoyed learning of Mercy’s past and the wonderful melding of two loving families. What I didn’t love – though it had no bearing on the romance nor my rating of the story – was the financial situation of Lieutenant Masterson. I liked him very much and that situation seemed to diminish him personally. Since it had little, if any, real bearing on the story, I would have preferred to see that be something a bit different.

I hope you’ll read and enjoy this book as much as I did.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Sweethearts Can Be Murder by Connie Shelton

Sweethearts Can Be Murder: A Girl and Her Dog Cozy Mystery (Charlie Parker Mysteries Book 19)
Barbara’s rating: 4 of 5 stars

Series: Charlie Parker #19
Publication Date: 2/8/21
Number of Pages: 308
** 3.5 Stars Rounded Up **

Charlie is alone at home and at work because her husband, Drake, is off fighting forest fires and her business partner, her older brother Ron, is on the first vacation he’s had in years. What does an enterprising CPA/detective do with herself while she has all of that aloneness? She gets busy and investigates not one, but two cases.

A teenager named Cassandra (Cassie) Blake entered Charlie’s office and asked to hire Charlie to find her missing mother, Jennifer Blake. Jennifer was reported missing over fifteen years ago and nobody has seen or heard from her since. Cassandra has been raised by her grandmother, Linda Arnold, who is now dying and Cassie wants to find Jennifer – or to learn what happened to her – before her grandmother passes away. Something about the young girl and her history pulls a chord in Charlie because of her own background and she agrees to help – as long as Linda is in agreement.

At the same time, Charlie’s Gram has a friend who is in her eighties but has taken up with a man in his forties. Once Charlie meets him, she is sure he is a charlatan only out for the older lady’s fortune. It seems they won’t be able to stop the marriage because the older lady, Iris, is totally enamored of Jeffrey Lougan and will not listen to anything her friends say. Iris won’t even agree to a prenup. Jeffrey seems very attentive to Iris, but when she starts feeling ill, her friends have to wonder.

Charlie has a time with her missing person case. It is as if Jennifer Blake just dropped off the face of the earth. Nobody remembers seeing her leave her home, but she was missing when Linda arrived to pick Cassie up for a doctor’s appointment. Cassie was in her playpen – all alone. The house was empty. Did Jennifer just walk away from it all? Did she run away with her ex-husband? Did something sinister happen to her because of something her druggie ex-husband did? Is Jennifer even still alive?

I liked the book, but it is not my favorite of the series. While the mystery is a good one, there is just no excitement in the story. It is a bit more like reading a rather dry newspaper account of something rather than actually living that moment in the story. Also, Drake didn’t even make a real appearance. I love those really exciting adventures where Charlie and Drake are tooling around together – in the helicopter or not – and all sorts of exciting things are happening. One other thing I’ll mention is that it keeps changing from one POV to another in the story. This didn’t bother me in the least and I thought it was a good device for telling the past story and the current story. However, I do know that switching POVs and timelines bother some folks, so I thought I’d just mention it.

This is a nice story, and I enjoyed the read, but it didn’t hold my interest enough for me to read it straight through. I honestly didn’t have any trouble putting it down to take a break.