Title: Taming Her Forbidden Earl, Book One in the LadyLancasterGarden Society Series
Author: Catherine Hemmerling
Publisher: Entangled Publishing, LLC
Genre: Historical romance
Taming her Forbidden Earl is a sweet, charming and slightly saucy historical romance. It’s a light read that doesn’t stretch the boundaries of its genre. You get exactly what you would expect from a historical romance, a handsome male lead who is unobtainable in some way – in this case a strong aversion to the state of matrimony – a sweet sassy female lead with intelligence and courage, and a plot involving some intrigue and where our plucky heroine almost ends up with the wrong man – in this instance a total creep who tries to blackmail her into marriage.
The main characters were very likeable and well fleshed out, and the story had no extraneous baggage. It moved along at a good pace and built to a satisfying, if not somewhat predictable, ending. Hannah did seem a bit too easy for a girl of the era, but we can make allowances for the sake of readers who like a bit of spice in their romance. Woman of historical times with modern sensibilities make for heroines that are easy to identify with.
It’s an enjoyable read for fans of the genre, but lacks the deeper themes that, for me, make a truly good book. It also suffers from rather flat writing. Too many sentences begin with words ending in ‘ing’, and the author too often uses the word ‘was’ when other options would be far more lively and interesting. Most readers would not notice such things, but it leaves the writing without power, and is probably the reason why the book failed to move me.
3 stars.
