Promised by Leah Garriott - REVIEW

Promised by Leah Garriott

Publication Date: February 18th, 2020

Publisher: Shadow Mountain / Proper Romance

Genre: Historical Fiction

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Synopsis:

Margaret Brinton keeps her promises, and the one she is most determined to keep is the promise to protect her heart.

Warwickshire, England, 1812

Fooled by love once before, Margaret vows never to be played the fool again. To keep her vow, she attends a notorious matchmaking party intent on securing the perfect marital match: a union of convenience to someone who could never affect her heart. She discovers a man who exceeds all her hopes in the handsome and obliging rake Mr. Northam.

There’s only one problem. His meddling cousin, Lord Williams, won’t leave Margaret alone. Condescending and high-handed, Lord Williams lectures and insults her. When she refuses to give heed to his counsel, he single-handedly ruins Margaret’s chances for making a good match—to his cousin or anyone else. With no reason to remain at the party, Margaret returns home to discover her father has promised her hand in marriage—to Lord Williams.

Under no condition will Margaret consent to marrying such an odious man. Yet as Lord Williams inserts himself into her everyday life, interrupting her family games and following her on morning walks, winning the good opinion of her siblings and proving himself intelligent and even kind, Margaret is forced to realize that Lord Williams is exactly the type of man she’d hoped to marry before she’d learned how much love hurt. When paths diverge and her time with Lord Williams ends, Margaret is faced with her ultimate choice: keep the promises that protect her or break free of them for one more chance at love. Either way, she fears her heart will lose.

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Thoughts:

This book was so much fun!

It had way more depth to it than I had originally expected. It had underhandedness, discussions about realities of needing to make changes for the good of business, characters who learn to see things from different perspectives, and two very interesting main characters.

I will admit that the ‘big reveal’ could have made my enjoyment less but the way that things were handled and the fallout from it was really well done. When we found out certain details, I actually gasped. I kind of saw it coming but everything came out in the perfect way.

There were also far more side characters than I thought there would be and each of them served a purpose. I did not feel like any character or plot element was ‘filler.’ Each aspect was thoughtfully considered and executed extremely well.

I feel bad when I really enjoy a book and don’t have much to add aside from writing paragraphs about how much I enjoyed it so I’ve decided to keep this review rather short. And I’m honestly not sure what I would change to make this a 5-star read, so I can’t elaborate with constructive criticism, but it just didn’t quite meet my expectations of a perfect book. Still incredibly enjoyable though and I will be looking for more from this author.