I have to admit, when Ms. Burkard approached me with reviewing Miss Tavisotck’s Mistake, I was a little hesitant, as I’m more of a mystery person than romance. However, I do love some romance in my mysteries, so I thought I’d give it a try. I was far from disappointed, and if you’d like to check out this and other books by Ms. Burkard, you can visit her website at https://www.linoreburkard.com/. Miss Tavistock’s Mistake is due out on June 8th, so mark your calendars if you’re ready for some regency romance.
Miss Tavistock (her full name is too long to type!) has been sheltered in the country by her uncle for most of her life, having been orphaned at the young age of nine. Ten years later, she’s ready to finally meet Captain Rempeare, her cousin and the man who has been promised to her as her husband for as long as she can remember. He’s been away in the navy while Miss T has been growing up, and she hasn’t heard much from him except for an occasional letter.
Because of his reticence and neglect, when Capt. Rempeare comes down to the country, Miss T decides to teach him a lesson by pretending to be “Lady X.” As such, they don’t meet or part on the best of terms, and Miss T decides to go to London to search for an alternative husband. However, the pair find themselves constantly in each other’s company, and Miss Tavistock begins to realize the captain might not be such a bad match for her, after all. But, how does one recover from pretending to be someone else to the man she loves?
I was pleasantly surprised by this novel. As a romance, I was expecting intro→ sex→ sex → interlude → more sex. However, this was pure romance, with an understandable and, even, reasonable plot! I liked being able to know more about the characters than the characters’ bodies. There were also some interesting secondary characters, especially Miss Tavistock’s paid companion, who is a welcome voice of reason throughout this novel.
The one element that I didn’t find very reasonable in this novel was Miss Tavistock herself, but that’s probably to be expected given that she is a sheltered 19-year-old girl. She begins with a relatively simple lie about being someone else to teach the captain a lesson, but instead of coming clean, she makes the lie more and more complicated because she becomes increasingly embarrassed about her dishonesty.
There are three things that contribute to the complexity of Miss Tavistock’s lies that are directly proportional: the magnitude of the lie increases as Miss T’s embarrassment increases because the depth of her feelings for the captain increase. It is a really immature response, and definitely something that an inexperienced teenager might do. So, it is realistic, but irritated me slightly as I would not put up with that from one of my friends!
Captain Rempeare was surprisingly easygoing about the whole whole situation, which I didn’t find realistic. Without giving anything away, Miss T/Lady X asks a lot of him that I don’t think he would be comfortable with. Aside from that, the captain is the perfect, honorable gentleman, and a good antithesis to Miss T’s deceptive character. His siblings are well-written characters as well, although they play more minor roles in the story.
On the whole, I enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I would. I really liked that it was a falling-in-love romance novel and that it had an unusual plot line with a few unexpected events. Although I found Miss T’s character vexing, I think she was written that way on purpose to show her immaturity. The captain was charming, and it was clear that he found Miss T alluring despite her deception and embarrassment and, perhaps, even because of it. If any of my readers are into Regency Romance, I’d suggest giving this book a try, but not if you’re looking for explicit content – this book is all about the butterflies.