You know what? I really liked No Earls Allowed. I read a lot of historical romances and this one surprised me in many wonderful ways. From the lackluster blurb, I wasn't expecting too much going in. But I love Sourcebooks novels and was excited to receive this copy. 

First thing--ignore the blurb. Or maybe absorb and then immediately forget the blurb. It doesn't come anywhere close to explaining the complexities around the characters. But maybe that's a good thing, because then readers get to just experience the story as its thrown at them.

I usually get bored at some point or another--the heroine or hero is just too damn angsty, or too wildly and inexplicably attracted to the other, or too much time is spent on getting to the good stuff. But I was invested in these characters from the beginning. The story is told in alternating POVs, but you never get the same scene recounted from both characters, which so often drags the story down.

Juliana is not necessarily a surprising character, but she nonetheless a compelling one--a fiercely independent woman devoted to raising a houseful of orphaned boys. She eschews men and doesn't want anyone to tell her what to do even as it becomes clear that she is definitely in over her head at least a little bit. Enter Neil, who is a rather surprising character (but no spoilers here). 

It's so much fun watching these two navigate the waters--of society, of the orphanage, of their relationship. The book keeps you on your toes up to the very end--seriously, for a minute there, I thought there might be a cliffhanger. Definitely no cliffhanger, but still a satisfying end (and definitely a satisfying steam factor, too). My only complaint is that sometimes Juliana is way too frazzled and I would have liked to see her have a little more competency early on? (But I may also be projecting a little here.)

Should you read it? This was my first Shana Galen novel, but it definitely won't be my last. If you're a fan of historical romances in the vein of Tessa Dare or Lisa Kleypas, you'll want to add this one to your TBR.

This latest installment is Galen's Survivors series swept me up in its characters and kept me up far past my bedtime. The characters of Julia and Neil are both struggling with the painful losses of siblings and find a start to healing in the Julia's orphanage for boys. I found the development of Julia and Neil's relationship to be realistic with Julia's slow acknowledgement that she was in over her head and Neil's reluctant realization that the orphaned boys have a lot to teach him. The similarity of their emotional wounds made the fact that they could help each other heal believable since they could understand one another's pain in a way that someone who hadn't experienced such couldn't. This is definitely a book I'll be recommending and rereading.

No Earls Allowed is a steamy, romantic, suspense that made me cry!

While No Earls Allowed is much steamier than I enjoy, I did love this book! I just skimmed the parts I didn’t love.

I loved watching Julia and Neil fall for each other as they saved themselves and the orphans from the dangers of London, and their pasts.

The boys in the orphanage made my heart break while I laughed at their shenanigans. It was the perfect mix of realistic fiction.

shana galen's survivor's series continues in no earls allowed, with the group's warrior, mr. neil wraxall taking center stage. when his father asks for his help retrieving the earl of st. maur's daughter from an orphanage, neil doesn't think much of the mission. he expects it to be completed in the course of an hour or two. but when he meets lady julianna, he quickly realizes that she is set on her path.

she cannot leave the orphans behind, even as the orphanage itself falls to pieces around her. and neil can't leave her to struggle through setback after setback alone. he's already had to leave too many men behind him, he can't take leaving anymore. even if julianna isn't one of his men. even if they aren't at war any longer. this is the prism through which he understands life.

and julianna, who can't leave anyone else behind either. who can't let go of the orphans she's given her heart and love to freely, will fight alongside him. and will prove herself to be the perfect partner. the one neil never knew he needed.

**no earls allowed will publish on march 6, 2018. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/sourcebooks casablanca in exchange for my honest review.

This was an entertaining read with lots of smooth writing my one of my favorite authors. MS Galen has such talent in giving us the readers a tale of romance. She never fails to give her all. The characters were well developed with thoughts and feelings of their own. Even though it's a part of a series, this can be read as a stand alone.
Lady Juliana St. Maur is the one to take care of her late sisters child who died giving birth. Now the child has been taken away from her by her brother in law who had no real feelings for her sister. He only married her for her money. Juliana misses her sister terribly as well of her nephew. She is now left to see to the running of the household while her father is another world of grief and pain.
Since her life purpose in her nephew is taken away, she has taken over the care of orphan boys in Spitalfields. A crime lord wants her to become her mistress, but she is dodging his advances the best she can. Her father now wants her to return home to marry.
The house that the orphan boys lives in is run down, roof leaking, food is missing, and no one to oversee the cooking. They have a man who suppose to work in the house, but he's usually at a pub drinking.
Enter our hero who thinks that Juliana has lost her mind! She won't leave because she cares so much for the boys who have no one. They would starve and no one would care. She must stay and be strong for them.
Major Neil Wraxhall is the bastard son of the Marquess of Kensington. Neil is an ex soldier who has lots of bad memories and guilty feelings of having survived when other didn't. He has been asked by Juliana's father to get her to go home.
Neil and Juliana butt heads but there is an attraction between them that burns slow and hot.
They go though lots of trials, but they do have a happy ever after. Of course, love is the key!
I appreciate Net Galley for the title in which I gave an honest review.

Major Neil Wraxall has answered his father's request and agreed to bring Lady Julianna home to Mayfield. Julianna is at a run-down orphanage for boys and is determined to turn things around for her charges. Unfortunately, the orphanage is in a gang territory and the gang leader has targeted her as his own. It was up to Neil to convince Julianna to give up the orphanage and return to her father's home. Neil undertakes this the same way as he does everything--it's a mission to be accomplished. Being a war hero, he knows how to run things, but Julianna thwarts him at every turn. Can these two work together to bring about a successful outcome?

I really liked Neil. He was a man tortured by memories of the war where he lost his brother and many other brothers-in-arms. Nightmares plague him nightly and Ms. Galen does an excellent job of letting the reader feel his pain. I thought Julianna was too naive in thinking she could be successful with the orphans. Her love of those boys were apparent, but there were so many problems that were just not solvable. The chemistry between Neil and Julianna was excellent although I would have liked it to be longer than 2 days before they started to have feelings for each other.

All in all, this was another very enjoyable story from Ms. Galen. Fans of regency romances will certainly love this book!

I received a copy from NetGalley; this is my honest review.
-Funny and endearing with a bit of suspense and mystery. Lots of actions. Believable.
-Stubborn and impulsive, Lady Juliana is a great match for Major Neil Wraxall, who's everything but.
-She gets herself in all kinds of bad situations and he's there to pull her out at every corner.
-Like others, I had a hard time believing she would fall for him. She has actually never been nice to him this whole time contrary to him, except when he was pleasing her.
-In the description it says something about scandal, but there is no scandal in this story...

3.5 stars...It took me a while to get invested in this book, but even then it didn't capture me like I hoped it would. I loved how fiercely independent and headstrong Julia was and to me she's the shining star of this book. I liked Neil and the way he helped at the orphanage, but his dwelling on the past got old after a while. The suspense and the steam is what saved this book for me. I also really enjoyed the interactions with the boys; they were very entertaining.

ARC provided by NetGalley.

As with all of Shana Galen’s historical romances, she has again delivered a tale sparkling dialogue and an adventure-packed plot. I’m so glad I accepted an invitation from the publisher, via Net-Galley, to read and review No Earls Allowed, the second book in her Survivors series.

The pacing is quick, and the story pulled me in from the first page and kept me engaged until the last word. Not only are the main characters enthralling, the many orphans in the novel, have their own nicely developed character arch.

Lady Julianna’s character has a heart as big as the ocean and protects are charges, even at her own peril. When the hero shows up, they are thrown together and must work together to save the orphanage. Her heart is as big for him as for her boys.

Major Neil Wraxall’s character is my favorite hero. He is honorable, brave and determined to protect Julianna and her boys no matter how hard she makes it, and her fearless attitude definitely makes it VERY hard. The sincere, caring love he gives her stole my heart, and his backstory brought tears to my eyes.

The chemistry between Julianna and Neil jumps off the page. Ms. Galen certainly knows how to build sexual tension. That’s something I expect with historical romances. I fell in love with this couple and truly wanted them to find their happy ending!


If you are a fan of Regency romances with plenty of action and heart-warming characters, then you will love No Earls Allowed as much as I did. I highly recommend this book and this very talented author. Happy reading!

Spitalfields is the carbuncle on the buttocks of London. So, what is the unmarried, unchaperoned daughter of the Earl of St. Maur doing living at the St. Dismas Home for Wayward Youth (aka Sunnybrook Home for Boys) that is right in the middle of Spitalfields? Well, she’s doing the very best she can to care for a dozen orphans who are all prey for the criminals of Spitalfields. The roof leaks, the stores in the larder are coming up missing, the stairs are rickety and the locks on the windows and doors don’t work. Oh, yes, and she has become the target of Slag, the supreme lord of Spitalfields crime scene. Slag wants her – or more specifically her body – for his own use.

Lady Juliana St. Maur is no longer the flighty, spoiled debutante she was a year or two ago. So much has changed in her life, so much pain and sorrow has settled into her. It all really started years ago when her mother died – because she basically lost her father at the same time. He withdrew into himself and allowed Juliana and her sister to suffer from his benign neglect. Then, her sweet, beautiful, older sister married a man Juliana just knew wasn’t what he seemed. Sadly for her and her sister, she was proven correct because he turned out to be a profligate who only wanted her sister for her dowry. Then, her sister died in childbirth – but left her sweet, beautiful baby boy for Juliana to love. Imagine how bereft she was when the father of the baby showed up six months later and ripped that sweet baby, Davy, from her arms as well. Now, those orphans in her care will receive all of her love, care, and protection – and she will do whatever it takes to protect them.

Major Neil Wraxhall, acknowledged the bastard son of the Marquess of Kensington, is a troubled war hero. As the commander of a group of men formed by Lieutenant Colonel Draven, he was required to send his men on suicide mission after suicide mission until all but a dozen were gone from this world. Neil feels so much guilt and the ghosts of those eighteen men he lost haunt him at every turn – especially at night – in his nightmares. Between his feelings about being a bastard and sending all of those men – his friends and brothers – on suicide missions, he is a tortured soul. He’s lost to all that is good and sweet in the world. Neil is still on good terms with his father though – and occasionally handles small tasks for him.

Shortly after entering his club, the Draven Club, one evening, he is given a note that was delivered earlier. The message was simple – “Call on me at the townhouse at your earliest convenience. I have need of you. – Kensington”. Neil had no idea how those few words from his father would change his life. The mission sounded simple enough, all he had to do was go to an orphanage in Spitalfields and return the recalcitrant daughter of his father’s good friend, the Earl of St. Maur, to her home in Mayfair. That task should surely be quick and easy. That is – he thought that was the case – until he met the stubborn, opinionated, pig-headed young lady who had her feet dug in and absolutely refused to leave the orphanage.

What an absolutely atrocious morning Juliana was having! The cook quit, she was trying her best to cook for the boys and then Slag shows up and makes it very plain he intends to have her – then – on top of all that a tall, handsome man showed up to inform her that she was to return to her father’s home. Well – she straightened him out very, very quickly!

The book was a fast-paced page-turner that kept you interested and intrigued until the very end. The characters were wonderfully written and interesting, the story was wonderfully written and well plotted. One thing I particularly liked was that both the hero and heroine were virgins – but the book was still very sensual. Well done Ms. Galen! We also had ‘guest’ appearances by Ewan (from book one) and Rafe. The secondary characters were wonderful – especially all of those sweet orphans! While this is the second book in the series, it can easily be read as a stand-alone.

So, with all of that, why didn’t I give it five stars? Well, there were just a couple of things that sort of threw me off my stride in the book. First, there is absolutely no way an aristocrat in that time period would have allowed his daughter to live as Juliana’s father allowed her to do. He may have been inattentive, but he would not have allowed her to ruin herself and drag the family name into scandal. I also didn’t totally buy into Neil’s constant woe-is-me attitude about being a bastard. He was acknowledged, had a good education, etc. and during that time, from what I have learned, acknowledged bastards were pretty much accepted within society – they weren’t a preferred match, but they were accepted.

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"I requested and received this e-book at no cost to me and volunteered to read it; my review is my honest opinion and given without any influence by the author or publisher."

Wounded Warrior meets his match!

I was so looking forward to the next in The Survivors series, and I was not disappointed!
This time it is Neil Wraxall's story, acknowledged illegitimate son of the Marquess of Kensington.
Neil was part of Draven's Dozen an elite troop who had fought hand to mouth against Napoleon, where death was a surety. It's these men's return to peacetime England that is the problem. "They were the only men alive who had gone to hell and come back again." Neil had been known in the group as The Warrior. Now those who'd survived were feted as heroes. Unfortunately war has not prepared the survivors for peace time. "And that was part of the problem. If he wasn’t the Warrior any longer, who was he?"
Self realization, self acceptance and love for both Neil and Lady Juliana is key.
When his father asks Neil to assist the Earl of St. Maur in bringing his daughter home from the home she's involved in in the Rookeries Neil sees no problem. That is until he actually meets Lady Juliana. Then his world implodes as the 'Virgin' Warrior finds himself in the fight of his lifetime for an unrepentant champion of orphans and the focus of a crime lord's desire.
A totally delicious read!

A NetGalley ARC

No Earls Allowed is another hit by Shana Galen. I couldn't put it down!

I’m just going to say straight off that I have no idea how the title relates to the book. It’s not a line anyone says, or a vow the heroine has made. The hero is the illegitimate (but acknowledged) son of a marquis, and frankly since the heroine, Lady Juliana, has put herself beyond the bounds of acceptable by leaving home to run a boys’ orphanage anyway, he’s a good match for her.

This is a pretty cookie-cutter Regency in a lot of ways, with added plot moppets for colour, and a fight with a slumlord who is determined to make Juliana his mistress. Neil’s PTSD isn’t really addressed in any meaningful way, which I found rather disappointing after enjoying Third Son’s A Charm, the previous book in this series. It’s well written, as I’d expect from Shana Galen, but somehow fell a bit flat for me. I can’t give it any more than four stars.

This is the second novel in this series which revolves around the men who have survived through war with the French after being part of a troop of men who were basically sent on suicide missions.

This story is about Neil, the leader of this group. He is the acknowledged bastard son of a Marquess, who routinely gets asked by his father to do jobs for him. This time he was asked to bring home the daughter (Juliana) of a friend who has left home to run an orphanage.

He goes, but gets invested in the lives of the children and Juliana.

Also, this guy is saving his V card for marriage because his life was pretty rough as a bastard and he doesn't want to make any more of them.

I actually really enjoyed this story. There was some pretty good drama with the crime lord who was trying to get into Juliana's bed. The kids were cute, but there was also some good insight into the realities of poor, parentless children during this time. As well as the topic of PTSD and how soldiers cope after war ends.

This was a super easy read, but entertaining and fun. There was a weird continuity thing with the age of Juliana. At one point she's 23, then she's 25? Hopefully this was fixed before printing.

Fabulous read. I enjoyed this book. I was provided a complimentary copy of this book so I could give an honest review.

Sweet and romantic story of a heroine that is managing an orphanage and a hero who is back from war and is sent to bring her back home. Loved the chemistry between Neil and Juliana. This is book two in the Survivors series but can be read as a standalone book. I am a fan of this author’s books and cannot wait for the next book in this series.

* I received this ARC from NetGalley and the publisher for an honest review*

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review. No Earls Allowed is Shana Galen’s second book in the Survivors Series. This is The Warrior’s story, better known as Major Neil Wraxall, the recognized bastard son of the Marquess of Kensington.
Neil is sent by the Marquess to assist his good friend, the Earl of St. Maur by helping his daughter in an orphanage she cares for in the Spitalfields and get her home to Mayfair pronto! However, what Neil imagined would be a simple mission ends being more complicated once he meets the said daughter, Lady Juliana or Julia as she prefers being called. A dilapidated orphanage needing repairing and securing, a dangerous slumlord with licentious designs on the lady, a group of unwanted children and three rats ensure there is enough chaos to last a lifetime!
I love Shana Galen’s books! They are a perfect mixture of humour, adventure, danger, reality and romance. Both Neil and Juliana have gone through experiences which has changed them. While Juliana’s experience had brought about positive results, Neil was still stuck in his despairing thoughts of war. Children being children, the orphans were guilty of at least half of Juliana’s troubles, with their pranks and the way of life they knew in the slums. I like the fact that Ms. Galen included enough detail about most of the boys to give authenticity to the story, even including traits and characteristics of conditions which at the time were unknown to the world and might have made the children unwanted or difficult to raise.
You cannot have a Shana Galen book without an element of danger and adventure. This comes in the form of local slumlord Mr. Slag who provides the perfect villain for Neil to save Juliana from, despite her fearlessness and courage. Obviously, the other Survivors appear to lend a hand to their Major when needed, despite their fear of ‘babysitting’ the children. Leaving the best for the last, Ms. Galen always manages to provide comic relief in the form of a cheeky pet. In this case, there were the three rats the orphans adopted and played with.
Thanks to Ms. Galen for providing another keeper! I highly recommend No Earls Allowed!

No Earls Allowed by Shana Galen is book Two in "The Survivors" series. This is the story of Juliana and Neil. I have read the previous book but feel this is easily a standalone book.
Juliana had taken to working at an orphanage to help the children and her father has allowed her to do so. Juliana's died and her father felt the work would help with dealing with that lost but now he feels it time to move on and asked his friend to have his illegitimate son Neil, who is also a war hero to go get his daughter. Neil feeling confident this will be a quick task he can complete is finding now that it is not so easy. Juliana finds herself having to take up the job of feeding and doing other things there to keep the orphanage going a a loss of help.
Neil is taken by surprise about what he is learning about Juliana and her non-conventional ways.
I really enjoyed this book! It took me in on just the first few pages...loved it!

I liked this historical read. Juliana is the daughter of the Earl of St. Maur and has been taking care of an orphanage and has no plans on leaving. Neil has been asked by his father as well as Juliana’s deliver her home. He gets way more than he bargained for when he arrives at the orphanage. Fun and entertaining characters and a story with plenty of drama. A good read.

War hero Major Neil Wraxall, bastard son of the Marquess of Kensington, was summoned by his father, to lend a hand to his friend, the Earl of St Maur. The earl's daughter, Lady Juliana, is in dire need of assistance. She runs the Sunnybrooke Home for Boys and it's falling apart, literally and figuratively. Not to mention a disreputable man is threatening Lady Juliana's safety and security.

Neil and Juliana are grieving the loss of their respective siblings. They suffer with their loss and deal with their grief as best as they can.

They also try to resist the palpable growing attraction to each other.

Neil has fixed the dilapidated building and the threat to Juliana's person; has disciplined the rambunctious boys like a war hero that he is; gave Juliana her Davy back, and showered her with affection.

Shana Galen writes seamlessly. This is poignant, hilarious, passionate, with honourable hero, and kind-hearted heroine, as well as endearing secondary characters.

The biblically-named rats and Neil's cavalry thoughts whilst making love to Juliana had me in stitches

I'm looking forward to the stories of the other surviving members of Draven's troop.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an eGalley from the publisher. All my opinions are impartial.