The story is written in a very traditional Regency style of literature. It moves a little slower than other types of romance, but it does a deep dive into what the characters think and feel. It shows how easy it is to misunderstand each other when we don't know the whole story. It was deeply satisfying to finish and learn how love works in unusual ways.

Severely chagrined, William Cole returns home and immediately comes under fire from his father, demanding that he shape up and find purpose in his life. Informed that he is to court the vicar's daughter, William reluctantly pays a call. It does not go well, and nor do the ensuing visits, when he makes one clumsy mistake after another. Verity is nothing like the women who have swarmed around him most of his life, and her quiet spirit and fascination with butterflies, bugs, and beetles intrigue him. Finally, after embarrassing himself even further, William has had enough and begs his father to allow him to join the campaign against Napoleon. When Verity is invited to Munro by her sister, she once again meets up with William, where the attraction between them grows, but with conflicting feelings about past mistakes, William refrains from declaring himself. When called to arms, the army leaves to fight a bloody battle, where personal battles are also fought. He returns to his sister's home, broken in body and soul, and demands to be left alone. He does not count on Verity's loyalty or her insistence on seeing him. It is Verity who has to take the lead and declare herself, before he has the courage to offer her his heart. The novel comes to a sweet conclusion and is a standalone. I received a copy of this book as a gift through Dragonblade Publishing and NetGalley, and this is my honest and voluntary review.

A sweet, clean story with some interesting looks at life and war. Verity is lovely and enjoyable. William on the other hand, left me cold. He is selfish, self centered and Verity could have truly done better for herself. Well written and engaging to read. If you like sweet stories, this series is the one for you.

Verity's Choice is the third title in the Ladies of Munro series. Written in the more traditional (a few decades ago) style of Regency Romance, Verity’s and William’s romance is certainly a clean, sweet relationship that is full of angst and a rather immature hero. I grew up (reading-wise) on the Traditional Regency style and have embraced the Modern Regency style. I enjoy both, and Verity's Choice does have touches of both styles, although it glosses over many historical facts. While I enjoyed Verity’s character, I was constantly frustrated by William’s attitude and behavior. Frankly, I saw him more as a spoiled brat whose favorite toy was snatched away instead of a romantic hero. (my opinion)

I wish I could have enjoyed Verity's Choice by Elizabeth Donne more, as I had with the earlier titles in this series. At its core, it is a good book, but with characters I simply could not care about, or whether they found their happy ending or not…mostly William. Any review is simply one person’s opinion, yet I had wanted more from the characters, a growth, that moment when I saw a real change in them, and I simply didn’t find that.

*I received an e-ARC of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley, and I sincerely thank the author or publishing house for their trust. It is my choice to leave a review giving my personal opinion about this book.*

He lacks ambition...

William Cole is a lazy son, who flirts, gambles and skates through life on his looks. He doesn't contribute to the community and planned to only be a better man if he wed Ellena, who married a viscount instead of him.

Verity likes insects, butterflies and is happy in nature, not wed to William.
But its the marriage understanding for them both.

DNF. I did not like William at all. Verity is a sweet, brilliant girl who deserves someone who will love her, not someone who's in love with someone else.
Thank you to Dragonblade for the copy of this book. Opinions are my own.

First of all, it is lovely to know that the subgenre of tradiational Regency romance was not completely snuffed out upon the death of the much-beloved Signet and Zebra lines. There will always be a place in our sandbox for sweet, traditional stories without “inspirational” overtones, and some of the biggest names in the game right now cut their teeth on trad Regencies 30-40 years(!) ago. So, kudos to the author for carrying on a beloved tradition!

The gorgeous cover and enticing blurb set my expectations pretty high, as these are tropes I love: childhood friends-to-lovers who endure a separation and come together as adults, much changed by their life experiences and perhaps pleasantly surprised by their old acquaintances, who are pushed towards a marriage (of convenience?) by matchmaking friends/family members. Within the strictures of Regency era society, there is a lot of room for things to go wrong, either comically or dramatically.

Unfortunately, the blurb does a disservice to the story itself. Our hero and heroine are 21 and 18 years old, respectively. They haven’t seen each other in five years…but so what? Not a lot of life happens between the ages of 13/16 and 18/21, not for gently-bred people in the 1810s at least. Verity, the vicar’s daughter, was always by far the youngest of the neighborhood children and was largely left out of their play. She developed her interest in entomology largely because of that: she could give the butterflies and beetles her attention and care because she had no other playmates. She seems to have had a puppy-love-like attachment to William, the second son of a nearby landed family, but otherwise these two don’t really have much history to draw from when they meet again as young adults.

Verity’s family is pushing her into marriage as if she was at least 5 (if not 10) years older than she really is. She ‘comes out’ to Society in this book, and yet her family treats her as if she’s been out for years and turned down every marriage offer ever given; if she doesn’t find a man this year, she’s going to be a burden to her aging parents or older siblings as the inevitable poor spinster relation. It just doesn’t square with reality at all.

William, meanwhile, was apparently one of the villainous characters in the previous novel, who worked hard to break the engagement between that hero and heroine, and who had a nasty falling out with them. He carries a torch for that lost love for half of this book, and is a total jerk to Verity more often than not. I read more about his pining for Ellena and dislike for her new husband than I did his thoughts on Verity. He half-asses his courtship of Verity at the start (he is apparently licking his wounds from the last book, and Verity is his rebound) and when she rebuffs a thoughtless gift, he gives up on her entirely and has mean thoughts about how childish and selfish she is. Hoo boy did that get old fast, especially when he’s acting like a selfish child himself most of the time. He finally gets his way in that he’s allowed to join the military instead of being pushed into the clergy, and engages in some rakish-lite swanning about in his uniform and flirting with other ladies.

Then, his feelings seemingly turn on a dime and he realizes that he does love Verity, but he’s made a hash of it. Plus, now she’s out on the marriage market and openly searching for a husband, and a Very Convenient Third Wheel turns up in the form of another, perhaps more suitable suitor to complete this love triangle. William is jealous that Verity suddenly has lots of male attention. He makes a half-hearted gesture to be her friend and try to help her vet potential husbands, but nothing much comes of this.
The third act breakup is rather weak and rushed. <spoiler>The military is called back to war, with everyone heading directly to the Battle of Waterloo. William and Verity share a passionate kiss, but since he doesn’t actually use his words, Mr Third Wheel gets in the marriage proposal first, which Verity very stupidly accepts for basically no reason. She feels guilty the whole time the men are away and plans to break the engagement, but conveniently the Third Wheel is killed in the war *and* asks William to marry Verity in his stead, thus clearing all obstacles in their path to their HEA. It is all way too predictable, and there is very little time spent mourning the death of the steady but otherwise dull Third Wheel before these two are jumping in each other’s arms. William is also stoically injured at Waterloo and thus has no reason to turn down the curate job with Verity’s father, with an eye on taking over the vicarage upon his retirement.</spoiler>

My main issue, ultimately, is that this storyline is just way too mature for people who are still basically teenagers. They are impulsive and immature and just lack the life experience that would’ve made their choices by the end of the novel feel authentic. William is a jerk right up until the end because he is still full of Manly Pride, and Verity acts way older than her years as she confronts him about it and brings him off the cliff of his jagged feelings. There is something very puppy love-ish about their romantic feelings for each other.

This is not helped by major events being glossed over in the text. For example, in the middle of the story, William spends an entire chapter assisting in decorating for Yuletide festivities. There is a lot of talk about the hanging of mistletoe, and he spends a lot of his inner monologue considering all of the available young ladies from whom he’d like to steal a kiss. It is a long anticipatory chapter that feels like it’s leading up to an important scene, but we turn the page and suddenly it’s a month later and we’re hearing about the events secondhand after the fact. It was jarring.

This sort of gloss continues throughout the novel and affects the military subplot – if you just went by this book, then you’d think the English army gathered to fight one battle with Napoleon and it was all over in a day. The Napoleonic Wars actually lasted for 12 years; Napoleon’s escape and return in 1815 lasted 100 days. It does a real disservice not only to history, but to the main male character, to basically make the war a passing lark that robs him of his physical beauty in a rather superficial way.

The author also wobbles in the tried and true tropes of trad Regency. I could see what she was trying to do, but she didn’t quite manage to pull it off, IMO. A kiss is tantamount to a declaration of love in trad Regencies, yet here it’s treated in a more modern sense, with characters second-guessing themselves and leading to said weak third act breakup. I think the author also set up some intriguing ideas (like a romantic rival who is constant and staid instead of passionate in nature) but time and again she took the easiest path out and avoided the hard conversations that would’ve actually prompted some believable character growth.

Still, for all my qualms, this is an imminently readable book, and those who perhaps aren’t such sticklers for tropes will enjoy it more than I did. There are some excellent emotional scenes (including William and Verity’s first kiss), and it is a low-angst, low-drama read. I’d definitely read more by this author, and wish these books were available in the library beyond KU. Based on the blurbs for other books in this series, this author has interesting ideas, and I can only imagine that the more she writes, the better her work will become.

This is the first story I have read from this author. The depth of feeling that she writes into her characters make you feel like you are part of the family.
Verity loves all things that crawl, which makes other people’s skin crawl. William is rather egotistical and selfish, up until the moment he is called out for it. The storyline was well done and written over a long period of time- from the time they met until the very end. Though I enjoyed the back and forth between the characters , some of this story seemed to have dragged on. I will admit towards the end, i was very ready for book to be finished. The secondary characters were well developed as well, as I could feel their emotions as well. The parts written about the war were very interesting and written without a lot of blood and gore. William’s trajectory was a sight to behold and satisfying to see end so well. Seeing Verity grow up a bit was good to see, as don’t we all have to decide to make our own choices, instead of trying to please others. A good read, just somewhat drawn out. Sweet, clean and no crass language (thank you Author, for that!)

I received this story for free and these are my own views.

The story is written in a very traditional Regency style of literature. It moves a little slower than other types of romance, but it does a deep dive into what the characters think and feel. It shows how easy it is to misunderstand each other when we don't know the whole story. It was deeply satisfying to finish and learn how love works in unusual ways.

A novel about a young lady who loves studying insects and an immature young man. I struggled through the first half of the book but the last third was more interesting.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Oh my word.. What a delightful, glorious example of Regency fiction. Butterflies (both literally and figuratively speaking) are a major motif and drive the plot forward unexpectedly. Romantic tension bordering on chaos leaps from every page. A heroine “ doomed” to be found strange, a hero with a penchant for aforementioned quirky ladies, former paramours to complicate everything- all of it is here. I believe I have found both a new favorite author and genre. What a treasure. If you choose to read something on the beach this summer, let it be this book. Elizabeth Donne is a master, and Verity’s Choice is a precious gift to literature.

I absolutely loved this story! William Cole is such a charming mess at the start vain, handsome, and completely unprepared for the curveballs life (and his father) throws at him. Instead of joining the military like he planned, he’s suddenly expected to become the new village vicar and marry the vicar’s daughter. Enter Verity Lockhart, who is nothing like the quiet girl he remembers. She’s smart, fiercely independent, and obsessed with science and insects completely scandalous, and completely wonderful.

The chemistry between William and Verity crackles from the start. Their banter, the clash of expectations, and the journey from resistance to romance was everything I could’ve hoped for.