Book review: A Faithful Proposal by Jennie Goutet

A sweet Regency romance where purpose triumphs over pleasure

The scenario

Anna Tunstall goes to visit her friend Emily Leatham who is expecting a baby and needs companionship while her husband is away at sea. A short distance from her destination, Anna’s carriage is held up by highwaymen and she is knocked unconscious. Harry Aston, the rector, finds her, and is soon hoping to persuade her to stay in Avebury permanently. But Anna thrives on the fashionable life of Regency London, and she is not in a hurry to give it up.

What I really liked

I very much enjoyed this sweet Regency romance with elements of faith woven in. I loved the gentle romance between Anna and Harry, with the dramatic elements of Emily’s story and of the search for the highwaymen going on in the background. I particularly liked seeing Harry’s flaws and the way his brother brought out the worst in him. It made him seem more human than a perfect clergyman would have done. I really liked the way Anna interacted with Harry’s brother and how Goutet demonstrated that lack of openness can lead to mistrust.

Those little historical details

I am a big fan of the little historical details threaded through the narrative that give a Regency romance an authentic feel. Goutet did this beautifully, with references to Hannah More’s Practical Piety, published in 1811 (the year before the book is set), and the Treaty of Amiens of 1802, which produced a temporary lull in hostilities between the United Kingdom and France during the Napoleonic wars.  

Church customs

The hero, Harry, is a clergyman, and there are some interesting details about church life in the Regency including buying church pews and tithing. These sent me scurrying off to do some research as it was not an area I had looked into before.

I was aware of the existence of tithing, but I had assumed it operated like a parish tax and was paid in money, like a rent payment. It was something of a surprise to discover that in the Regency, although sometimes a monetary arrangement was made between the tithe payer and the tithe owner, tithes could still be paid in kind, as Goutet mentions in A Faithful Proposal.

The idea of owning or renting a pew seems appalling to me, but it was a source of income for the church at this time. In discouraging this practice, Harry was risking a reduction in the church’s income.

A word about words

I am always intrigued when I check out words that don’t sound right to me in a Regency setting only to discover they are perfectly acceptable. A quick look in my etymological dictionary told me it was fine to use chum and poppet (though it did make me think of Pirates of the Caribbean!). 

Other words, such as touché – an exclamation to acknowledge a hit in fencing – sound right, as gentlemen fenced in the Regency, and yet the first recorded use according to my etymological dictionary was 1902!

Since reading this book, I’ve added two more by Jennie Goutet to my Kindle library. I guess I must have liked it this book quite a lot. 

Clean and sweet?

Heat level low – just kissing. 

Christian characters with references to faith, prayer and purpose. 

No swearing. 

Mild violence/accident.

5 stars Highly recommended

Rachel Knowles writes clean/Christian historical romance set in the time of Jane Austen. She has been sharing her research and reviews on this blog since 2011. Rachel lives in the beautiful Georgian seaside town of Weymouth, Dorset, on the south coast of England, with her husband, Andrew.

  Find out more about Rachel's books and sign up for her newsletter here.

Book review: A Noble Masquerade by Kristi Ann Hunter

 

An easy-to-read Regency romance with intriguing servants, undercover spies, and secret letters

The scenario

Lady Miranda Hawthorne wants to be courted for who she is and not because her brother is a Duke. She pours out her frustration in letters to her brother’s old friend, the Duke of Marshington, who disappeared some years before. Of course, she never intends to send them. But her brother’s new valet, the intriguing Marlow, does not know never to send her blue letters and mistakenly sends one. Miranda is embarrassed when she gets a reply, but the fact that Marlow knew where to send it makes her suspect there are things her brother is not telling her, and that his valet is not all that he seems.

What I really liked

I found Hunter’s style easy to read and enjoyed being introduced to the Hawthorne family with their strong family loyalties. My favourite part was Miranda’s secret letters to the Duke of Marshington written on blue paper and I thought they added an exciting aspect to the plot. I felt the faith elements were woven into the story in a natural way. I also loved Marshington’s array of interesting servants, particularly Jess.

If you have read some of my other reviews, you may have learned that I love to know when a book is set, and Hunter tells us that the prologue is set in 1800 and the main part of the action takes place in 1812.

Ice skating on the Serpentine

Hunter makes a brief reference to skating on the Serpentine. During severe winters in Regency England, the Serpentine River in Hyde Park often froze over and attracted people from all walks of life to come and skate. The skaters were mostly men, but there were occasional newspaper reports of women on the ice. 

You can read more about Regency ice skating here.

What was Bedlam?

At one point, Miranda thinks she is going mad, and she talks of taking herself off to Bedlam. You may be familiar with the word bedlam, meaning a scene of confusion, but you may not realise that it comes from Bedlam – a psychiatric hospital in London.

The Hospital of Saint Mary of Bethlehem was originally a priory, and was given by Henry VIII to the city of London for the cure of lunatics. It was also known as the Bethlem Hospital and colloquially as Bedlam. Hence the term Bedlamite, meaning an insane person, which my online etymological dictionary says dates from 1620s. It was notorious for allowing visitors to ogle at the mad inhabitants, but this practice was later stopped.

A few Americanisms

As a Brit, I am used to coping with American spelling and terminology, but there are a few things I struggle with. The floor level is one that gets me every time. Our ground floor is an American first floor, but once I remember this, I can still picture the scene. However, I don’t often come across phrases that I don’t understand and confess I had to run to Google to tell me what gobs, shuck and conniptions meant.

One word that didn’t work for me in the Regency England setting was school. Brits don’t use the word school to refer to university. Eton and Harrow are schools; Oxford and Cambridge are universities. I felt that Oxford should have been referred to as university, not school, particularly in speech.

There were one or two historical details that I queried, and I did not feel that the spy element of the story was resolved to my entire satisfaction. But none of these things undermined the great storytelling and for me, that is the key thing.

I loved this book and look forward to reading more by Kristi Ann Hunter.

Clean and sweet?

Heat level low – just kissing.

Christian characters with prayers and faith references but no sermons.

No swearing.

Some mild violence, but no gruesome details.

5 stars Highly recommended

Rachel Knowles writes clean/Christian historical romance set in the time of Jane Austen. She has been sharing her research and reviews on this blog since 2011. Rachel lives in the beautiful Georgian seaside town of Weymouth, Dorset, on the south coast of England, with her husband, Andrew.

 Find out more about Rachel's books and sign up for her newsletter here.