Courting the Country Miss

This story follows "Courting the Countess", this time featuring Leticia Wentworth and Tristan Barrett as the heroine and hero.

Leticia displays uncommon grace, even after getting the short end of the stick in the first novel, through no fault of her own. She becomes best friends with the woman who married her "true love" (this is not a spoiler), and together they open a charity school. This unpopular venture has been a subject in other novels I've read, and is well-portrayed here, with resulting danger.

Tristan is charming and we learn why he acts as he does. His character growth is refreshing, as I did not much care for him in the first book. Leticia and Tristan gradually go from best friends to something more. Thankfully, there is no insta-love!

For a better understanding of the characters' personalities and motivations, it is better to read "Courting the Countess" first, although this is technically a stand-alone.

Donna Hatch's prose flows well with few grammatical errors. This book is also clean. I've read most of Hatch's writings, and while this is not my favorite, I recommend them all.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this enjoyable novel.

Did not realise this was a sequel until I looked at the author .l was pleased it was about the lady who was let down in the earlier book. It was nice to see she found marriage to the rake who betrayed her . I enjoyed reading this book as much as the first.

This was a well written regency romance. I think this is the best rake to reformed story I have read yet. It took a while to get going and the book was a little long for me. There was a bit of repetition but I understand why the author took her time. She wanted to show his change over a year but I think that making the book so long wasn't the best way to do that. I liked both of these characters and that kept me reading. The ending was a little over the top drama after the quiet pace of the book, but I so enjoyed them finally getting together. Donna sure knows how to write a good kissing scene:} This is a clean book. With some kissing and talk of his womanizing ways but done very well.

Tristan's rash action destroyed his childhood friend Letitia's expected marriage to Tristsan's brother - and as a result, he feels guilty and responsible for finding her a husband. Letitia isn't interested in such a project, but she hopes it will change the company he frequents for the better, and therefore doesn't object. But when he begins to think of others courting and marrying Letitia, he begins to realise that that's not what he wants at all... When the chips are down, can the wrongs of the past be made right?

The tale of Tristan's action and its immediate results are told in an earlier book, which it might be helpful to read first, but it's not actually necessary. Like the first book, this is well written, with romance that develops slowly and some background suspense and charity that exposes the divides in society, particularly then but possibly also now to a lesser extent. Well-plotted and enjoyable, I've enjoyed every book I've come across by this author and recommend them as clean Regency fiction that's sometimes tackled from slightly different angles to the typical obsession with titles (how many dukes do people really think there were around?) and balls. I look forward to more by the author.

Note that I received a complimentary copy of the book from NetGalley. I was not required to write a positive review and this is my considered opinion of the book.

3.5-4*

I’ve been a fan of Donna Hatch since I randomly stumbled upon her book The Strange She Married on Amazon. That was quite a few years ago now. I haven’t quite read all of the books she’s written since then but I have read several of them and have enjoyed them. I even enjoy reading her blog posts where she shares some pretty neat tidbits and history of the Regency period. So if you’re a fan of that era or just enjoy learning some interesting historical facts then I recommend you check out her blog. Or if you sign up for her newsletter you’ll get links to her blog when she adds a new update.

I saw this series when it was first published and it caught my eye. However I have just recently read them. This is the second book. If you’re not familiar with the first one, Tristan is a secondary character in that book. But we learn quite a bit about him from the first one, Courting the Countess (which I’ll refer to as CtC here on out). He actually spurs on the relationship between the two main characters in that book. Now we get to read his own story as well as another secondary character from the first book. Leticia is the other secondary character and was practically engaged to marry Tristan’s brother until he rather quickly became engaged to another. Which you can go read all about in CtC.

Both Tristan and Leticia are left to heal and move on with life. Tristan has been known as a rake and is finding that his previous ways are not bringing him the happiness they once did. Leticia is hurting from losing the man she has loved her whole life. She grew up with both Tristan and his older brother so they have all been good friends for years.

I enjoyed the continuation of the first story and characters. I was glad that Tristan finally starts to change and reform to be a better character. He wasn’t necessarily a horrible character before, just one who wasn’t willing to settle down and enjoy a fling or two with widows. He wasn’t my favorite character. In fact in the first book I kinda wanted to give him a piece of my mind for causing some of the troubles that he caused. But of course if I did that and it worked then the book wouldn’t have had some of the tension and buildup it needed to be able to have a resolution. So I guess I can’t give characters a piece of my mind. Bummer! But I will say that Tristan has some redeeming qualities that helped me to like him more as a character. He’s a bit of a rascal. Not necessarily in a bad way, he’s very devoted to his family and friends and he has good motives for most of the aspects of his life. He has quite a bit of pain that he is working through from his childhood and some heartaches he’s endured. So looking at him from that understanding makes more sense of his actions. But I did come to like him more near the end of the book.

I won’t go into much more detail about the book. I skimmed a few parts at the beginning and the middle because I was as connected to these characters as previous books. But I felt like the book really picked up and caught my attention when I was about mid-way through. I know that I’ll enjoy the books I read by this author so I stuck with it. The ending was sweet and these two characters were finally able to find healing and their own sweet love story.

Content: The book didn’t have any scenes with characters having sex. As I mentioned before, Tristan is a rake so there are mentions of previous indiscretions with widows. It doesn’t go into detail just more knowing it happened. He has a couple widows very blatantly flirting with him and trying to seduce him. So there are some mild innuendos scattered throughout. I would not label it as squeaky clean but maybe steamy clean would be a better description.

I received a copy from the publisher, The Wild Rose Press, Gia NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions in the review are my own.

Happy Reading!!!

Courting the Country Miss is the second installment from Donna Hatch's Courting series. I enjoyed this sweet romance and give it four and a half stars.

I recieved a free copy from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
For the kost part I liked this book.
Leticia was left heartbroken when the man she knew she would marry since childhood wed another.
Tristan was responsible for Leticia's heartbreaking so he decides to play matchmaker. Until he realizes that he wants her for himself.
It took longer than I liked for Tristan to change his ways and that made the book feel a little slow and dragged on a bit too long.
But overall I liked their story.