The Best-Laid Plans by Sarah M. Eden

  

 My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Romance, Historical Romance
Content: Clean

 

Newton Hughes has long dreamed of pursuing a career in law, an acceptable choice for a gentleman of status and wealth. His parents, however, disapprove of his ambition, urging him instead to take his rightful place as a gentleman of leisure—with a suitable wife of their choosing, of course.

Ellie Napper would like nothing more than for her parents to abandon their incessant efforts to marry her off to the greatest possible advantage. Her lack of matrimonial enthusiasm drives her family mad, but she refuses to feign frivolity in order to make herself more palatable to potential suitors.

When Ellie and Newton are introduced through their mutual acquaintance, Charlie Jonquil, they commiserate over their shared plight. In desperation, they hatch a plan: Ellie and Newton will feign an interest in each other—enough to convince their parents not to push them toward unwanted matches but not enough to cause whispers or expectations. Their plot quickly spirals out of control, but the greatest complication is the one they didn’t see coming: their plan never included falling in love.

 

I was surprised to find this little standalone book by Sarah M. Eden is actually tied to a couple of her series. The main one of interest for me is The Jonquil Brothers, but this is also tied to The Lancaster Family series as well. I've been eagerly awaiting the day that the 7th Jonquil Brothers book will be published and I wasn't finding any info on it. Then I discovered that it's actually also the 5th book in The Lancaster Family series and that's how it's listed on Goodreads. I'm really excited to finally have found it and that it will be published this year!

So obviously these two series have been tied to each other for a long while. I've never read the Lancaster series, but I plan to get to that one eventually. That brings us to this book. This is a standalone with main characters who are not a part of either of those series, but it acts as kind of as a bridge between those two series with Charlie Jonquil and Artemis Lancaster as supporting characters. Charlie and Artemis have known each other their whole lives as their families are close, but they can't stand each other...or at least that's what they say. In this book they help out friends, Ellie and Newton who are being pushed by their families to court people they do not wish to court.

I thought this was a fun story with very likable characters. It was easy to sympathize with Ellie's plight. Her family was truly awful to her and often accused her of doing the very things they were doing. Newton was a great love interest and I enjoyed seeing their romance blossom. I would have liked an epilogue with a little more at the end, with some insight into how Newton's family receives Ellie as his betrothed, but maybe we will get more of that in the book about Charlie and Artemis.

Overall this was a great read, and I liked it better than some of Eden's longer books that are part of The Jonquil Brothers series.