3/5 Stars
Kingscastle by Sophia Holloway is a standalone romance novel, but I found it engaging and it wrapped up satisfactorily for me. I chose this novel off of NetGalley, and thought, by the description, that it might fit into the romantic suspense genre rather than romance. I feel that it wasn’t very suspenseful, but it was a nice, clean romance. I was given a free copy in exchange for a review, and all opinions expressed here are totally my own. I’d give this novel three out of five stars.
Captain William Hawksmoor, related to and often confused with the recently deceased Lord William Hawksmoor, has just inherited the family estate from his erstwhile cousin. He doesn’t want the estate, but accepts the obligation placed upon him of looking after his lands and the people that live on them. He less likes the stipulation that he must marry within two years and produce an heir. Even less palatable is his Aunt, Lady Willoughby, who’s a nagging stereotype of old, entitled gentry.
Even with all of the unpleasantness, Lord Hawksmoor takes the estate in hand as is his duty. He hires a new steward, recruits the vicar’s sister to redecorate, and begins to settle into his new life. In the back of his mind, he’s thinking of his obligation to marry, and even has a candidate in mind – although it’s not his cousin like his Aunt would prefer. To make things more complicated, the object of his (reciprocated) affections is Miss Eleanor Burgess, his Aunt’s paid companion. Their attraction is plain to everyone but the two of them, and Lady Willoughby spends most of her energy aiming to keep the two of them apart. Will she succeed?
I found Sophia Holloway’s writing style to be very engaging. Although the story is mostly focused on William and Eleanor’s perspectives, Holloway occasionally gives us insights into other characters, and usually closes them with a wry and amusing comment. I really liked this feature as it did make the characters a lot more realistic, and let readers have an insight into different personalities. Holloway’s style is also uncomplicated and straightforward, which makes the characters’ inner comments that much more amusing.
Now, on to the plot: I thought it was acceptable and very straightforward. The main challenge to the love story was Lady Willoughby, and her meddling led to a second, more minor complication. The plot definitely could have been more complicated and the challenges more unusual than the grumpy, elderly, interfering relative, but the writing quality and the characters were pretty solid, and there were only a couple of plot holes that distracted me.
First, Eleanor is working for Lady Willoughby as her companion, and could end her employment by accepting William’s offer. For some reason, she didn’t realize this through the whole book and was determined to keep in Lady Willoughby’s good graces to keep her position, even after she realized that she loved William. I don’t understand why she didn’t just go talk to him and accept his proposal soon after that. Second, there was a moment when a child fell down a well on William’s estate and William went down to rescue him. My issue with this is that these are village children, clearly used to doing hard work, and able to identify a well and the danger it posed. I wish some clearer explanation had been provided of how the child got down the well!
My only other criticism of this book is that Lady Willoughby was just a little too villainous. I didn’t like her at first, and held that opinion all throughout the book, but Lady W never showed one aspect of redeeming quality about her, which I wasn’t a fan of. She was just a fairly flat character, with no why to her actions, and I think that could have been improved upon (she wouldn’t have had to be nice by the end, mind you, just something to have made her a little more real).
All in all, if you want a clean, dirt-free, historical romance book, I think Kingscastle will amuse you and be a satisfying read with a happily-ever-after ending. I enjoyed reading it and would read another book by Sophia Holloway in the future. I did see that the book mentioned that she has a mystery series under another pen name, so I might try those as well.