The latest in the Westcott series gives us the story of Estelle Lamarr, who readers have met in prior books. This novel is more of a slow burn even than many of Balogh's other books, with the enemies to lovers trope unfolding gradually throughout the novel. Emotionally complex characters as usual, but lighter on the passion. A good addition to the saga, but perhaps not as strong as a standalone.

When Lady Estelle’s friend Maria is summoned home to live with her estranged brother Justin, Justin proposes to the twins that it may make things easier if they come along too as a friendly face. He also invites all of his extended family along as well so we have another book in this series where we get paragraphs and paragraphs of just lists of relatives names. I think part of this authors goals with this series at this point is to name drop as many characters as possible.
The relationship between Estelle and Justin was fine, though Justin had some unnecessarily secretive things in his past the made Estelle believe he must have been some sort of villain for much of the book.

I am of the opinion that Mary Balogh never disappoints, and I loved this new entry into the Westcott series. Lady Estelle Lamarr (and her twin brother Bertrand) are familiar to readers, and we are introduced to the large, complicated family of Justin Wiley, Earl of Brandon. It takes awhile for Estelle and Justin to realize their love, but it is a journey well worth taking. Highly recommended.

Another great regency novel by Mary Balogh. This book is part of the Westcott Family series. I loved getting to see character from older books return and I love getting updated on the family. This book is more tamer than a lot of the other books she writes. This author is a must buy for me

This was another great Regency romance from Mary Balogh. I really enjoyed it and also loved how Mary catches you up with all the family. Excellent.💕💕

This wonderful title truly stands alone, but it is even better for readers who have enjoyed at least some (if not all) of the books in the "Someone" series. It was great to see a book about the Lamarr twins (Viola's stepchildren). This one is all about Estelle and her gradual falling in love. Not as "spicy" as some of the books in this series, which actually fits the characters and their personalities. I look forward to recommending this book, along with the rest of the "Someone" series. I think this is the perfect series to recommend to newer romance readers who have discovered "Bridgerton" and want something like it.

Well. This was rather disappointing compared to other books by Mary Balogh. I read every Balogh book, and I adore them. They are among my most anticipated book releases each time. I was excited for this one as it launches a new series. It was a pretty big let down. The characters were not really developed at all and nor was there any particular romance or connection developed between the main characters. They don’t even have a significant and meaningful interaction until 30% through the story. Literally. And through the first 85% they interact perhaps 5-7 times, each time being extremely short interactions. During perhaps 3 of those interactions they speak to each other for a time but it’s just really long monologues where they explain their history to the other person. There’s no banter, no flirting, no slow coming to know each other. Almost the entire book is full instead of pages snd pages and pages and pages full of descriptions of the manor house or describing a long convoluted family tree of a huge cast of tertiary characters whose presence and existence don’t even drive the story forward. And it’s not the westcotts! Balogh has bizarrely decided to just do again what she already did last series w the Westcotts, this time w a new family. I don’t understand why so much time was spent introducing us briefly to a TON of random family members of Justin’s. Instead of developing Estelle & Justin and providing a story that shows us romance snd falling in love we instead get mostly pages describing the house snd introducing a huge cast of unimportant characters, and then a random “suspense” plot which is in addition to the annoying mystery of why Justin’s dad banished him (it was clear pretty early on why do it was hard to care about this). I ended up not caring about the characters or story because there basically was no characterization or story, just a listing of tons of random family members, two unemotional kisses, and one perfunctory & rather rushed sex scene.

Since balogh is demonstrably able to deliver excellent characters & beautiful love stories (as seen in so many of her other books) I can’t figure out what happened with this book. Perhaps balogh suffered some pandemic induced ennui and it resulted in this tepid, romance-less, disappointing story.