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| If You'll Have Me by Esther Hatch |
Let’s begin with the summary:
A lady desperately seeking freedom. A prosperous younger man. An unexpected connection.
Anna Atwood returns to Breckenridge, where she spent one blissful summer as a young woman. This time, though, she comes to the quaint town as a penniless spinster with a single hope: to build a life free from the constraints her father’s death put on her and free from the persistent suitor Mr. Green, whose plans for marriage are Anna’s worst nightmare. When she runs into David Tate, the boy she knew from that memorable summer, she finds he has grown into a confident and striking man. As they rekindle their friendship, David offers her warmth and protection in the moment she needs it most—when Mr. Green appears in town and threatens to destroy Anna’s carefully laid plans.
David Tate remembers Anna as the spirited woman who once brought light into his dark childhood. Now a man of means, he has a promising future, if he can withstand the powerful Lord Murphy—a man whose menacing hold on the town he owns is surpassed only by his relentless hold on David’s life. When David meets Anna again, he realizes he has a chance to save her from Mr. Green’s schemes, even if it means putting himself in danger of Lord Murphy’s wrath and revealing his own deepest secrets.
In a moment of desperation, David and Anna agree to a proposal of convenience to provide the safety they both need. But as their attraction ignites, the looming dangers from Lord Murphy and Mr. Green threaten to destroy their budding happiness.
And now, my review:
I loved this Proper Romance novel! It’s one of my favorites I’ve read in a long time.
There's fun humor from the first pages. The romantic element was well written, wholesome, and delightful. I laughed aloud over a couple of antics.
These characters are very well designed. They're good for each other, trading off protective, selfless deeds for the other.
Our heroine carries the weight of her family’s future on her shoulders as she must provide for her widowed mother. Anna is strong and noble and not always correct in her guesswork about others' thoughts, especially the hero's. She's willing to make sacrifices, which makes her heroic. We root for her even as we worry what level of sacrifice she'll have to make.
Our hero has pined for her our unreliable narrator heroine forever. It’s fun watching him long for her, and remained determined to protect her. David's immediately likable. We know he's been through something, yet he is kind and gentle-spirited. He puts the villain in his place, again and again. Bravo!
I liked the jabs at modern creepiness with well-worded prose. David calls out Mr. Green for being a perv, wanting to marry someone half his age. The morally upright characters show Mr. Green simple human decency, and he sees this as encouragement. Relatable. Modern. It's affirming to see that in an historical.
I liked how they solved the heroine’s problem and how they were strong and competent together. This book held my interest for the entire story. Now, I'm off to find more books by this author.
Highly recommended!
