Blackmoore by Julianne Donaldson

Well, I officially love Julianne Donaldson. I LOVED Edenbrooke and eagerly awaited Ms. Donaldson's next. This one was quite different and just as enjoyable.

Kate Worthington has always dreamed of being included in an invitation to Blackmoore, the estate that her best friend's brother  (someone she works hard at not loving, by the way) is heir to. But when he finally invites her to Blackmoore, her experience is different from what she had imagined it would be. Charged by her difficult mother with the task of receiving and rejecting 3 marriage proposals before Kate will be allowed to go with her aunt to India (as she has been dreaming of for the last 2 years), Kate will discover at Blackmoore that she cannot play at love without injury to herself and others.

I so dislike writing summaries.

I also dislike books that mire the reader in the protagonist's hopeless situation, which this book seemed to be doing at the beginning. But I soon became totally caught up in Kate's relationship with her family and the Delafield family and waited rather breathlessly for the resolution of Kate's love story (well, actually I didn't wait breathlessly at all for very long because I am a person who reads ahead to the ending just to make sure it's all going to come out well. Because if it doesn't come out well, then why bother reading such an unsatisfying tale? And if it DOES come out well, then I have the pleasure of reading a good ending twice AND enjoying the story, secure in my assurance of a satisfying resolution. People always get all kerfluffled if I happen to mention my predilection for reading the endings first, but I stand firm in my claim that not EVERYONE needs to enjoy books the same way. Hmph.). I do feel just slightest bit, hm... dissatisfied? disappointed? cheated? I don't know just the right word for it, but I do feel just the slightest bit that way when the plot hinges on a highly dysfunctional family as this one does. That's kind of the Disney method, you know--the dysfunctional/incomplete/abusive family creates the conflict that the hero and heroine must resolve. Almost it feels like a lazy conflict. Give me an interesting conflict where the family is intact (many of Georgette Heyer's novels have this) and I'll show you a highly creative and gifted author.

However, I mean to cast no aspersions on this book, nor on Julianne Donaldson, because I have loved both of her books so far and I highly recommend them both!

Sex: none
Bad language: none