Overall: 2.5 rounded to ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Plot/Storyline: 📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 0
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 0
Humor: Just a bit

Basic plot
Eleanor is a lady’s companion and has been quite in love with her employer’s nephew, Peter. He makes her days wonderful when he visits, makes her laugh and look forward to time spent with him. Sadly for her, her employer gives her strict orders before he next arrives – not to talk to him or even be in the same room. Peter realizes he’s missing her presences and ends up proposing a marriage of convenience as a form of revenge on his aunt, as well as completing his duty to society by securing a wife. Unfortunately his proposal is so lacking, it makes Eleanor run away that night.

Give this a try if you want:
- low steam – there are a few kisses and zero sex in this story
- enemies to lovers – they begin as friends, but fairly early in the story their relationship undergoes what the hero considers a betrayal and it’s enemies for much of the book
- jerk heroes – I found this one to be a bit of a doozy, so you’ll have to be tolerant of that
- secret identity – heroine pretends to be someone else for much of the book
- unrequited love – heroine was quite enamored with the hero from working with his aunt as a paid companion

My thoughts:
Sadly this book was a bit rough for me! I really struggled with liking the hero, even by the end of the book. And this left me without the feeling that the heroine would be happy with him and they would get a true happily ever after.

Eleanor I had a few issues with, but as I got to know her more, I understood her lack of choices. With no where to go, it was quite unwise for her to just run away in the beginning of the story – she’s quite lucky anyone picked her up at all and the plot progressed the way it did. Almost a bit too much to believe (but much of what the duchess was involved in felt that way for me). The thing with Eleanor though, was that I still had sympathy for her. She was so limited. Her employer seemed quite intolerant, unpleasant and unlikable. She didn’t have family she could rely on. The family we do meet towards the end of the book shows how slim her choices are. I just felt so bad for her this whole story. She had such a lack of choice, freedom or security and was taken advantage of by basically everyone in the story I felt like.

Peter just left so much to be desired from me. I can definitely take a jerk hero. And he pulls some lines out in the beginning that just make him so unlikable – I expected him to make up for this in the following pages, at least by the end! But I found much of the story him continuing to be like this and act like a victim here. Basically his ego was hurt and it felt to me he wanted revenge on the heroine the whole book for daring to say no to his horrendous proposal.

I didn’t mind the pacing too much – though I definitely prefer more page time of the hero and heroine together. There was a lot of time of the heroine adjusting to life with the duchess after she escapes her employment.

I also just didn’t feel the story wrapped up nicely. I just was left unhappy I guess?

This was an ok story. The main characters were kind of meh. The plot was ok. IDK. It was just ok.
**I voluntarily read and reviewed this book

When Lady Bradbury tells her paid companion, ‘Men like him… never marry girls like you,’ Eleanor Mitcham is mortified. True, she does admire Lord Lavenham, her employer’s great-nephew, and she enjoys their lively conversation when he visits, but expectations of a marriage offer? To ‘plain, practical Eleanor’? Yet that is exactly what happens.

The path to matrimony, however, is not only circuitous, but a tour of some favorite romance motifs. Distressed by the hero’s cynical view of marriage, the heroine flees into the night, gets lost in fog, is saved from freezing to death and carried off to London by a manipulative Dowager Duchess; disguised and launched into high society, she is stalked by her disgruntled suitor, only to end up basically where she started: an unappreciated caregiver, this time in her vicar uncle’s household. What saves this Regency from melodrama is the pattern of tongue-in-cheek irony that underlies her misadventures, the self-honesty of the protagonists, and their ability to learn from painful mistakes. But have they learned enough? Is she ready to reject passivity and take control of her life? He to care for others? Both to risk disappointment by taking a chance at love? Recommended.

Annie Burrowes has given us another regency romp with From Cinderella to Countess. Our heroine refuses marriage proposal from Lord Lavenham, but gets caught up in a decidedly declasse household. From companion to fake lady on the town and then helper to her uncle's cheeseparing family. What could go wrong? Everything as our heroine blunders from one adventure to another. Read and enjoy.

An enjoyable enough read, but I wish the hero and heroine had spent more time together. It felt like a lot of the relationship happened before the story started and it seemed more like a short story to me.

He's awful, she lacks gumption.

I usually enjoy Annie Burrows books, but this was was a serious miss for me.
Why? Peter is awful, he's a rake (ironically, he keeps saying he is not like his rake father, but he is EXACTLY like him). He's shallow, awful and when he proposes to Eleanor, a plain, spineless companion, he says he'll be faithful , for a month! He's spoiled and when he's asking her to marry him, purely to annoy his mother's aunt, he tells her he's spread his favors around quite freely. He's then affronted when she tells him no, so of course, he must have her then.

Eleanor is such a weak character and has no growth in the story.
She basically remains the same. Peter gets a little better, but he started out so awful, he HAD to get better.

From Cinderella to Countess by Annie Burrows is an intriguing historical romance that sweeps you away to another place, another time. A story that is full of drama, family, relationships, and heated romance. Burrows creates a remarkable world with well-written characters that develop at a lovely place helping to create a smooth story flow. From Cinderella to Countess is a story I got lost in and did not want to put down.

3.5 stars
I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

While I’ve outgrown some of the tropes I used to like when I was first introduced to romance, I still love a good Cinderella story, and From Cinderella to Countess is a good one. As Burrows indicates in her introductory note, the hero is hardly a Prince Charming, but this contains the bones of why I love that trope: a heroine living in an intolerable situation finds a way out and is rewarded for the hardship she faced.

I was unsure about how to feel about the initial power imbalance between Lord Lavenham and Eleanor, and how he essentially lords over her and presses his suit, seeking vengeance when she refuses and disappears. However, I ended up finding the relationship endearing, and ultimately, I felt this was meant to be a light read not meant to be taken too seriously.

That’s further reinforced by the masquerade plot Eleanor gets involved in with her “fairy godmother,” the Duchess. It’s all rather silly, and while it feels a little drawn out, it’s pure fun in the best way.

This book is really sweet and fun. I recommend it to anyone who loves a good historical romance.

Will a country mouse make her way in London’s ton ...

I so liked the previous book by Mrs Annie Burrows, this one leaves me with mixed feelings.

First what I do not understand is the blurb, never before she felt she had to flee was she betrothed, she was proposed marriage but she refused the offer.
And it was such an awful proposal.
Then upon her escape, she sets a feet in the twilight zone with a bored aging dowager duchess more a scheming aging lady than a magical godmother.
I was unable to really care for both main characters, while he is a jaded and bitter lord, he is eventually the one achieving a complete arc, he comes from a man seing only to his own pleasure and refusing to allow any thought to feelings. To a man who weights someone’s sentiments, who cares for its security, who is moved by others’ tragedy, who is able to swallow his pride and grovel if necessary.
When Eleanor is a doormat for the whole book, letting everyone tramples her, too weak to really voice her objections, too afraid to confront the others, finally too happy to comply to others’ will if she can avoid conflict.
Even if it means engaging in a masquerade punishable under the law, because she is doll who does not know how to say no.
I do not know in fact at whom I was the more upset, she for being so feeble she is unable to decide what she really wants while all along she is telling herself lies or him for being so set on extracting revenge when he was the first cause of her flight.

Then they continue once everything had been laid down to misinterpret each one reaction to the other.
It only when she feels sorry for herself does she reconsider his proposal, that she did a mistake by rejecting his offer even if it was a sham of a marriage, his view of the ton’s unions but still.
The end resolution was a bit on the youpla-boom side.
3,5 up to 4 stars as I like the author’s writing style, it was just no a story for me.

I was granted an advance copy by the publisher, here is my true and unbiased opinion.

*** Maybe 3.5 Stars ***

This was my first time reading a book by this author and I thought the writing style was good, but the pacing seemed a little slow, the scene transitions sometimes seemed a little abrupt and it felt a bit - unfinished. I had a hard time coming to like Eleanor – it wasn’t that I disliked her – it was more that I didn’t come to care about her. I found her to be flighty, gullible, judgmental and constantly jumping to the wrong conclusions – especially about Peter. Peter wasn’t my favorite hero either, but I think the story gave me a better understanding of him than it did of Eleanor.

Both of Eleanor Mitcham’s parents were scholars who were wrapped up in each other and their scholarly work. Eleanor was always an afterthought with them. When they died, she wasn’t even an afterthought – she was left totally destitute. Rather than living with relatives, she decided to seek out a position as a paid companion. Unfortunately, the woman who employed her was a spiteful, vindictive, mean-spirited old woman who didn’t appreciate anyone or anything. One of the few bright spots in Eleanor’s employment was when her employer’s nephew came to visit. He was intelligent and made her laugh. Even though she never considered there could be anything between them, she still enjoyed his visits – until her employer accused her of ‘setting her cap’ for him and forbid her from speaking to or even being in the same room as him during his visit.

Peter, Earl of Lavenham, grew up in an unhappy household. His parents constantly used him as a pawn and he soon understood that marriage was not a good or happy thing. It was definitely something that would never happen to him – he’d never marry. Until… he went on a visit to his aunt and found that she’d forbidden Eleanor from having any interaction with him at all. How dare she! What was his solution? He immediately proposed to Eleanor. Because of his pride, he botched the proposal horribly by making it sound temporary and businesslike. He was astounded when she very firmly declined his offer.

Eleanor fled her employer’s home that very night – out into the cold and fog – and the misadventures begin. You have manipulative duchesses, pretend princesses, fake major domo’s, relatives who are users, and a very concerned earl. I began to wonder if they’d ever get their act together and then – wham – it was over. I would have preferred to see a little less time with the duchess and a good bit more time at the end. I felt a bit as if I’d been left hanging. I’d have liked to see the wedding and maybe an epilogue showing that he really could be happily married to one woman.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley. What follows is my fair and honest review.

From Cinderella to Countess by Annie Burrows is a new Harlequin Historicals title. Based on that title, I expected this novel to be a Cinderella retelling, but that’s not really the case, despite a protagonist named Eleanor and the rags-to-riches element. Instead, From Cinderella to Countess is a story about what happens to Eleanor Mitcham after she runs from an unexpected marriage proposal and why she can’t stop thinking about Lord Lavenham, even though his proposal was shockingly unappealing.

I thought From Cinderella to Countess was a fun read, and it reminded me a bit of Tessa Dare’s The Duchess Deal, as both have a gruff and grumpy hero who has a hard time admitting how much they need the love the heroine offers. I just wish From Cinderella to Countess delved a bit more into the emotional growth of both hero and heroine, though I think the hero’s “tortured past” could use more exploration to make readers more sympathetic to his perspective. I enjoyed the writing style, except for a few abrupt scene transitions that left me momentarily confused.

I think historical romance readers who enjoy when a hero and heroine are at odds will like this novel.

3.5 stars

This was cute! Nothing earth shattering, but enjoyable. And thank goodness this is a fairy tale because none of it can be taken seriously. But the writing was decent, and the story progressed as expected.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Lord Lavenham isn't interested in marriage and cultivates an image to make marriage minded mamas keep their little chicks away from him.
Eleanor Mitcham has been orphaned and works for Lord Lavenham's aunt, Lady Bradbury, an unhappy woman who spreads her discontent freely.
He enjoys interacting with the intelligent Eleanor until his aunt forbids her to be around him. She flees because she knows she is incapable of refusing him after he proposes in an unflattering fashion. In her flight she meets a duchess who takes her under her wing, and she's grateful for the aid, not knowing he's continued searching for her.
When he finds her sparks fly and they eventually become a couple, after much angst from not knowing enough about the other.
I requested and received a NetGalley ARC to peruse and recommend for those who love an overcoming the odds historical romance,

4.5 Stars

This is a book in the Harlequin Historical line by Annie Burrows.

I thought this was a good story and I really enjoyed it but it felt like it took the long way home as far as the plot went. Some of the sections were longer than I wanted them to be. The wrap up near the end where the couple finally got together were rather agonizing moments as we pondered their ultimate fate.

I wish Eleanor had been able to find a way to open her uncle’s eyes to see what it really means to take care of his family. The fact that he was a pastor and was clueless was not lost on me.

The whole sections with the Duchess were indeed odd but interesing. A bit long winded for my taste but nice. I was hoping that when the Duke finally appeared there would be more drama around him. But he was rather strangely silent. I wanted the author to dig into his character more. Maybe there is a future book awaiting him. Seems like a great candidate.

Overall, the story was pleasing. It did tend to go round and round so much it made me dizzy with relief when it was finally over. I think an epilogue would have been a nice touch here so we could see where their relationship would go a bit into the future.

If you want to read a good historical romance, definitely check this one out. You won’t be disappointed.

I received this as an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) in return for an honest review. I thank NetGalley, the publisher and the author for allowing me to read this title.