Marrying Winterborne

Rhys.

un nome, una garanzia.

I loved it. I was worried that Helen would be a little overly "wilting flower" for me, but she had a lovely, quiet strength. And it was impossible not to adore Rhys. Also,

I was bracing myself for a nonsense argument about Helen's parentage, and was

so gratified that it didn't happen.

Helen didn't keep this secret for overlong - give the poor woman some time to process, this was also new info for her, and that was on top of falling in love, and then being blackmailed by a heinous piece of crap who now wants to claim some kind of fatherly connection. All-in-all, I feel like Helen handled things well. She just needed a little time to bring herself to end things with the man she loved (which she was totally justified in believing he'd do, given his comments about Vance and his abandonment of a baby his best friends had previously).

And Rhys was great. Having her followed was a teeny bit high-handed, but understandable. And even despite having info about a secret she was keeping, he tried to give her room to tell him herself. And he didn't pull away from her out of suspicion. He could see she loved him, and he loved her.

And his reaction when he found out the truth... it was perfect. I was honestly freaked out when Charity looked like Helen - I thought EVERYONE would think she was Helen's child. I was so happy that was a bit of a red herring.

Really loved it.

p.s. Is anyone else desperate to know who Ransom is? Seems yummy...

Re-read Feb 2024

I can't believe it took me so long to re-read this. Though honestly, I gorged on HR for a few years and totally burned out on it, and dropped them entirely for a few years...so that's probably why. Also, despite my glowing review, I kept misremembering that there was something about this book I didn't love. But on the re-read, I can say that was definitely false, because I loved this completely. I think, due to the HR gorging, I just meshed some plot details from this book together with a different one in my brain.

just classic kleypas

if you have ever thought about getting into historical romance, start with kleypas, probably the wallflower series

this is mostly the heroine's book, helen trenear

i loved her when she was introduced in the last book because she is basically jane bennett

and.....i might love jane more than i love lizzie (gasp)

so helen is very shy, and naive, but also complex, kleypas doesn't mess about with boring heroines

and she has a secret that from her perspective, she really can't tell because it will separate her from her true love

which probably would have been true if this were not a romance novel, because as kleypas writes, everything back then (ha i am such a scholar) was about blood, whose blood you carried and how to carry on your enormously favorably bloodline

there is also a lot of good stuff in here from the older countess whose name i have forgotten, who talks about "women these days gotta get knocked up to keep their man if they're keeping a secret like this"

only in fancy words

because really, did we think having a baby to trap a man was a 20th century invention? no it is not

also a hilarious remark about how women have no place in the delivery room

which of course sets us up for the female doctor, who is beautiful sequel bait

kleypas is just back on track here and i love it