Earls Trip by Jenny Holiday

Tracy’s rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

Series: Earls Trip, #1

Release Date: April 23, 2024

Archibald “Archie” Fielding-Burton, the Earl of Harcourt, along with his two best friends Simon Courteney, the Earl of Marsden and Edward “Effie” Astley, Viscount Featherfinch (heir to the Earl of Stonely) spend two weeks together each September on a “Earls Trip”, but this year’s trip is sidetracked when Archie receives a letter from his country neighbor, Sir Albert Morgan begging him to save his daughters, Clemintine and Olive. They find the girls quickly, but things will not go as planned when they arrive at castle in Cumbria.

Clemintine Morgan had a temporary lapse in judgement when she gets engaged to Vegan activist Theodore Bull, but almost as soon as she realizes her mistake, Theo has moved on to her sister Olive and the two elope with Clemintine hot on their trail. Thankfully Archie and his friends find them before Olive and Theo do anything irrevocable, but Archie ends up shot, thanks to Clemintine. With the elopement thwarted and Theo sent on his way, the girls go with Archie and his friends to Cumbria. Clemintine and Olive have a lot of healing to do and Clemintine decides that she is better off not wed, but after her “experience” with Theo she wants to know true passion before she sets herself on the shelf and has decided that her childhood friend Archie is just the man to help her with that. What could possibly go wrong – after all, what happens on the Earls Trip stays on the Earls Trip, right?

I have never read this author before and was really looking forward to the book, but maybe I should have paid better attention to the blurb – especially this line : “Regency-era series with a delightfully modern feel” – which should have been a red flag that this was going to be a contemporary romance in period dress. Sigh…I wanted to love it, but I didn’t. It was OK, Archie and his friends were wonderful, but Clemintine was over the top – and I don’t like a romance where one person has to change to satisfy the other. In this book Clemintine is a strict vegetarian – maybe even vegan – which hey – good for you – but she refuses to be in the same room with anyone eating meat AND Archie is an avid hunter and carnivore, but to please her, he gives it up. I just don’t like that, love is compromise, so what did she give up or change for him? Oh – that’s right, nothing, UGH! The story was cute and I might try the next book, but overall, this book was a miss for me.

*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.*