All’s Fair in Love and War was a little too insta-love for me. The rest of the story was fun but the romance fell a little flat for me. I think perhaps others will really enjoy the book, it’s more of a “not for me” thing.

3 Stars.

🐕 The vibes:
- Temporary guardian and governess
- Wild children
- Regency romance
- Enemies to lovers
- Military MMC / governess FMC

🐕 My thoughts:
Georgie - a governess protege has been declined from 33 governess interviews. She’s too opinionated and untraditional for most families. But when Captain Henry Kincaid is desperate for a governess for his nieces and nephew, he snatches Georgie up.

🐕 While I do think this was more focused on Georgie and the kids and Norbert the family dog- it was still a fun read. The romance was there but did feel a bit instalove for me because of how few interactions there was overall. The romance did feel a bit of a side plot for most of the book and I wish for a little bit more interactions between Georgie and Harry throughout so that I could feel a bit more invested in their journey together. But even so, I did enjoy both characters and their individual journeys.

🐕 I’m so interested in this new series from Virginia Heath. I’m a big fan of her Merriwell Sisters series so I was thrilled to see more from her. The fact that this series is called Miss Prentice’s Protégées makes me SO EXCITED because when the other protégées were introduced in this book, I was thinking how I wanted books on each of them. Little did I know that’s what the whole series follows. So I’ll definitely be checking those out in the future.

Release date: May 28, 2024

Thank you so much to Virgina Heath, St. Martin's Press, St. Martin's Griffin, and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy of this book to read and review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

*note- posted on Storygraph, Instagram stories on 4/23/24 & saved permanently on Story Reviews highlights, goodreads, and barnes and noble. Links provided. Will be posted on Amazon after release date when Amazon allows me to.

Funny, fun and charming. As expected when reading a Virginia Heath book, I was delighted and highly entertained. Georgie is an immensely likable character. I loved her “inner Joan of Arc” she was constantly battling when she felt an injustice being done. I look forward to reading more about her sisters-in-arms, aka governesses.

I received a copy of this book from St. Martin’s Press.

Thanks NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC.

This book had a lot of potential. I think the general plot was great and characters were lovely. My complaint and it is rather a big complaint— in an instant, Georgie and Harry went from barely tolerating each other to some pretty heavy making out and eventually the full deed. It is hard to believe they actually loved each other when there was not really a basis of friendship. There was also some pretty crass language that I didn’t care for.

This was delightful! In the past I've been annoyed by FMC that are "outspoken" or have too fiery of a personality that the entire book (and their character development) is just to describe how outspoken and fiery they are...., but Georgie was a perfect blend that I absolutely adored! The banter between Harry and Georgie was great in slow building their relationship. Speaking of Harry, he is neurotic military man who hilariously misquotes famous military leaders but is genuinely a tender-hearted man who is oblivious and needs Georgie to keep him grounded.

The children were hilarious, and their antics were exactly what I would expect of bohemian parents with a touch of discipline.

There were a few typos/grammatically incorrect things in this book. It honestly took a long time for me to get into it, but loved the story like halfway through. I love Virginia Heath so I will read any regency book she writes. I am excited about the rest of this series.

This book was adorable. I did really like it, for what is was, which is a really adorable historical romance. There wasn’t anything wrong with this book, there were just a couple places where the sentence structure felt choppy and it pulled me out of the story.

All in all, delicious and delightful and I loved reading about Georgie and Harry, but mostly Norbert and Cuthbert :)

💜What I loved:
Opposites attract trope
Mischievous children
Closed-ish door romance (it is not the main reason they're together anyway)
Excellent characters-I loved all the supporting characters and the supporting pup.
The bond between Henry and his nephew and nieces

What a great start to this new series, and I can't wait for book 2!

⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 (Romance)
Release Date: May 27, 2024

Synopsis: Georgie Rowe was taken to Miss Prentice’s School when she was sixteen to learn to be a governess, seven years later, she has graduated and is struggling to find a position. When Harry Kincaid’s flighty sister drops her three children off at Harry’s home, he is in desperate need of a governess. Harry hires Georgie as a temporary governess, but will he want to keep her around for a long time?

My Thoughts: I thought this was a very cute slow burn romance. I did like that Harry finally realized that the life he was living maybe wasn’t actually fulfilling. I, like George, found Harry to be quite insufferable for the first ~50% of this book. But I honestly think that was the point, and I did warm up to him at the end. I thought the kiddos were delightfully rambunctious and I thought Georgie was great at adapting her teaching style for them. Anyway, I liked the book a lot. Would recommend!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Griffin for providing me an advanced copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.

If you love Regency romances or Slow burn romances, you’ll love this book.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher. I hadn't read a regency romance before, but the recent trailers for Bridgerton inspired me to pick this up. It was lighthearted and fun with minor angst (no miscommunication, phew) and moderate spice (I'd say 2.5 out of 4 chili peppers). The first person POVs were focused but I felt they sometimes went on too long about things unimportant to the plot. This is a series and I'd be interested in reading Lottie's story, as she seems the most rebellious to the norms of the time period.

This was such a fun cute romcom that I really enjoyed. The writing wasn't perfect but it was sweet. I ended up finding tons of moments where I found myself giggling. I rated this a solid 3 stars. I appreciate the opportunity to review this novel and would consider reading another by this same author.

Fun and easy to follow, love this romcom a lot, the setting was great, like the plot and how the characters developed , would be recommending

This was a really slow burn, and at first I was really not into the attitude of the FMC towards the MMC at all, but once she let up on her prejudices and started having fun with him I thought things really picked up. While I have a ton of Virginia Heath's books on my TBR, this is my first one and now I will definitely go back and catch up on what I've missed. 3.75 stars

i am OBSESSED! this is probably my favorite novel by virginia heath by far! i cannot wait to buy a physical copy for my collection so that i may read it again and again!

Thanks to NetGalley for a free eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Virginia Heath is slowly becoming one of my favourite regency romance authors. After really enjoying the Merriwell sister series (although I was slightly let down by the third), I was pretty familiar with Virginia Heath's writing. She, however, continues to keep her stories engaging and entertaining while maintaining some depth to each of her main characters. Georgie is a great female main character. I loved that she was strong-minded and never backed down from her principles. The slow-burn between Georgie and Harry is well done - I love a good pining male character (haha). My one gripe with the book is that I would have liked more to the ending i.e. exploring Harry's journey in his decision, as it did seem slightly rushed with most of the character development occurring off the page.

Overall, this is a really well done historical romance and I highly recommend picking this one up

Struggling governess Georgie Rowe who believes in cultivating joy in her charges clashes with the children’s uncle Captain Harry Kincaide who hired her. This has Sound of Music vibes, especially with stern, navy career focused Harry with his two watches and the opinionated and loving Georgie.

It was a fun premise that struggled with pacing, even with knowing this is the first in a series and needs a little more setup. Characters being in their own heads for long paragraphs at a time slowed the action for me. There could be pages of exposition before one character answered another character. I ended up skimming big chunks which is too bad because the characters are likable. They just needed more page time together for me to be invested in their low stakes conflict.

It was cute and well-written, but kinda slow! Not much happened until halfway through, and I struggled to keep going sometimes. Still, I really liked the characters and the story! The ending was nice, though not super exciting. But I did enjoy the book, it was good to pass time.

Georgia is a governess who has just graduated from Miss Prentice’s School for Girls and finds herself in the one place she doesn’t want to be - a military household. Her previous experience with her stepfather left a bad taste in her mouth with military men and Henry Kincaid is the most stereotypical of military men, or so she thinks. He is left in charge of his two free-spirited nieces and one nephew while his sister travels, and he hires Georgia to tame them.

A proper historical fiction romance, this novel is a slow-burn love between a straighlaced navy man and a fierce orphan (and innocent) governess. It has a cinematic quality to it - I felt like several times I could see the actors on the screen! For genuine fans of Regency literature, it scratches the itch of historically-heavy descriptions, and lengthy unfolding of plot points, all thrown together with a romp at the end. Slightly spicy Austen, if you will! I enjoyed this book, although I felt the beginning was a bit slow to take off, but once it did, I was hooked. Also, I love the dogs - a super fun addition to the story. Can’t wait to read the rest of the series about Georgie’s friends and former Prentice school graduates!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC.

Opinions are my own.

I've read all three of Virginia Heath's Regency era romances in the The Merriwell Sisters series and loved them all which is why her new series held such interest for me.

I wasn't let down either.

The protagonist, Georgie Rowe is an orphan (pretty much) with a neglectful stepfather ("the colonel") who washes his hands of her when she's 16 when he ends her off to Miss Prentice's Governess School where she befriends, Lottie and Portia, whom I can see becoming the next heroines in Heath's romance serial.

Georgie's a bold talker and not afraid to share her informed thoughts which makes her more disagreeable to finding suitable work as a governess as she doesn't pass muster during the interview stage, most often. Hence when the desperate Captain Harry Kincaid comes beckoning for a governess after his older sister leaves him strapped with her three children, Harry calls on Miss Prentice to find him a governess. Straight away there's physical attraction between Harry and Georgie though this is an enemies-to-friends-to-lovers trope so Georgie finds Harry mostly full of himself and a stickler for his order, unable to see anyone else's views. Harry takes to misquoting generals and great military leaders often which Georgie quickly corrects him for. As time passes, through their love and affection for the children and one another, they hook up.

I thought it was a slow burn of a romance and followed a more conservative approach to hooking up which is pretty much on par with Heath's style. It took almost 80% of the way into the book for two leads to fully act on their attraction. By way of comparison, most romance novels, it's about 60% of the way in. That said, it didn't bug me. I was invested and felt the characters were fleshed out enough for me to care.

Heath doesn't disappoint in her latest addition to her Regency romance arsenal. This one is a good debut for a new series as well.

It was adorable and very well-written, but definitely too slow! Nothing really happens until the halfway mark, and I found it hard at some points to continue reading. But I loved the characters and the story! The ending was cute, although a bit underwhelming! I adored the nautical references in Harry's speech at the end though, very adorable.