England, 1799Major Matthew Southam returns from India, hoping to put the trauma of war behind him and forget his past. Instead, he finds a derelict estate and a family who wish he’d died abroad. Charlotte MacKinnon married without love to avoid her father’s unpleasant choice of husband. Now a widow with a young son, she lives in a small Cotswold village with only the money she earns by her … her writing.
Matthew is haunted by his past, and Charlotte is fearful of her father’s renewed meddling in her future. After a disastrous first meeting, can they help each other find happiness at last?
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Historically paced sweet romance
I was unexpectedly entranced by this slow-moving and sensitively related tale of the man who returns from India to claim a title he thought never to have, and the calmly rational widow who is a veteran of her own fight for independence. Both have egregiously horrid families of origin, and their own very real personal demons that haunt them. The turn of the 19th century English setting is well integrated into a story filled with danger from without and within, peopled by characters who are (for the most part) individualized, memorable, and integral to the outcome. Save for the over-the-top villainy of his step-brother and her father, these folks populate a world long gone but made real in Jayne Davis’ well-written tale of love, redemption, and second chances.
Romance novel for adults. Review of The Mrs. McKinnon.
I loved this book. It was a real romance with realistic problems. Thought to be dead, soldier Lord Matthew Southam returns from India where he was imprisoned. Matthew is rescued however, he Suffers from PTSD, and becomes a drunkard. Matthew loses his will to live until he learns his scheming brother Charles is trying to steal his inheritance and his mansion estate. Netherthess, Matthew must stop drinking and get past his PTSD in order to properly restore it. In one of his drunken episode, he falls out of a carriage at the feet of Charlotte Mckinnon where he then throws up. Charlotte and her son Davie is living with her sister Rose Mckinnion. She was married to sergeant Mckinnon. Charlotte was married to a Captain Mckinnon. Hence, the two Mckinnon’s. Matthew was in the army with Rose’s Mckinnon. Charlotte is plagued with her own problems she is a widow who is determined to be independent of her domineering father who has plans for her to marry a rich title and to send Davie to a good boarding school. Charlotte doesn’t want this and tries to make her own money from writing about woodland creatures and articles. Nevertheless, her father is still persistent. One day Davie meets Matthew in his woodland grounds. Matthew and Davie begin a partnership of sorts as well as a friendship to create a map of the estate. Soon Charlotte is recruited to help at the estate as a secretary to assist Matthew’s surveyor. Charlotte and Matthew soon become friends and eventually develop feelings for one another which thwart her fathers and Charles’s plan to get her back. This book was so wonderfully sweet, lovely and funny. I didn’t expect it to be really serious but I also didn’t expect it to be so funny as well. It was a well- written story that kept my interest throughout the book. I liked the fact that the sex was non existent. Oh, it happens but it happens after a fade to black when they reach the bed. It wasn’t needed. I don’t think it would have worked well if it were. I joined this author’s newsletter to discover more of her books which I plan to devour. Lol.
The Mrs. MacKinnons is a delightful Georgian period novel in the tradition of Georgette Heyer and Jane Aiken Hodge. It was the first of Jayne Davis’s novels I encountered and I was delighted to find it. Good writing and good historical detail. I’ve been reading my way through the rest of her books, though to date, this is still my favorite.