Giveaway results & Review – The Heiress’s Homecoming by Regina Scott

First up, I’m pleased to very belatedly report the giveaway results for Admission.

Beautyinbudgetblog is the big winner, and she will receive a movie-tie-in copy of the book in short order courtesy of the publisher, Grand Central Publishing.  I send my thanks to the publisher for hosting the giveaway and to everyone who participated!  OK, now back to the regularly scheduled programming.

I’m quite behind schedule in my posting on this blog–I’ve been very busy in all areas of my life, and the amount of time available to putz around on the Internet has seriously decreased–and it’s starting to stress me out a little bit.  At any rate, I’m very pleased finally to be getting around to posting about this book, because I loved it.

Cover image, The Heiress’s Homecoming by Regina Scott

I have a bit of a soft spot for inspirational romances, but my appreciation for this book really has nothing to do with its wholesomeness.

As usual, I’ll start with the blurb, courtesy of Goodreads:

To keep her cherished childhood home, Samantha Everard must marry by her twenty-fifth birthday. Yet she refuses to marry on a whim, not even to save her fortune. When she returns to Dallsten Manor to say goodbye, the last person she expects to see is her handsome, disapproving neighbor William Wentworth, Earl of Kendrick.

Will is certain the scandalous Everard family is nothing but trouble. He shouldn’t care about Samantha’s predicament, but her feistiness and kindheartedness intrigue him—as does her refusal to wed. He wants to help, especially when he perceives the threat that surrounds her. Soon his greatest wish is to persuade Samantha that her true home is with him.

The publisher’s blurb doesn’t lie – the story is about a woman who has to make an awful choice: marry within a few weeks or lose her family home.  It’s about what happens when that woman meets her handsome, disapproving neighbor and the hijinks that ensue, including said neighbor persuading her to matrimony, but the whole is so much better than one would assume, considering a sum of the parts.

For starters, there is Samantha, a well-developed character whose motivations and actions always make sense.  She doesn’t want to marry without the right kind of love, so she chooses not to accept the well-meaning proposals that are thrown her way.  Her choice is not made out of petulance, it’s an honest conviction to which she sticks, no matter the personal cost.  Beyond that, Samantha is reasonably self-sufficient.  When danger rears its head, she neither cowers behind the males nor charges off half-cocked into danger.  Instead, she arms herself when possible, fights when she’s able, and runs for safety when there is no other choice.  Samantha is never a damsel in distress, even when a dude with a gun is chasing after her.

Then there is Will, whose development from disapproving neighbor to man in love is a delight to read.  For some added fun, readers also get to watch Will recover from his grief at losing his first love and learn how to relate to his nearly-adult son, Jamie.  The relationships between Samantha and Jamie, friends since childhood, Samantha and Will, and Will and Jamie are complex and, for me, were a bit of surprising gold hidden in an enjoyable story.

There were a few things about the story that didn’t entirely work for me.  I haven’t read any other books by this author, and some of the backstory elements that involved Samantha, Will’s brother, and Samantha’s relatives (all secondary characters here) didn’t quite make sense to me as a reader new to the story.  That said, the things I loved about this story (Samantha, Will, & Jamie, pretty much) far outweighed the occasional irritation of not knowing what was happening.

So there you go!  If you’re looking for a historical romance that is wholesome and not at all preachy, has interesting, well-developed characters and an intriguing  if occasionally confusing, plot, this is the book for you.

The Heiress’s Homecoming was released on March 5, 2013 as a mass-market and e-book by Love Inspired Historical (Harlequin).  If you’re interested in learning more about the book, please click on the cover image above to visit the book’s page on Goodreads.  For more information about Regina Scott, please visit her website.

*FTC Disclosure – I received an e-galley of this book from Love Inspired via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*