I picked this book up in the airport just before a cross country flight. I had never read a book by Stella Cameron and will probably never read one again. While the premise promised an interesting regency romance, the novel delivered a disappointing plot that was badly written. My first major problem with the book was the lack of accurate vernacular for the period the novel was depicting. Half of the words out of the characters mouths would not have been in the vocabulary of a nineteenth century British aristocrat. Next, the inaccurate portrayal of British society drove me nuts. Almost all the characters acted in a twenty-first century manner. The author's writing left much to be desired, oftentimes her prose was confusing. Her writing did not flow in a manner that made it easy for the reader to understand what she was trying to say. Aside from these problems were the obvious plot holes and lack of continuity and believable character development. Chloe had too big a vocabulary for a five-year-old. If Harry really looked so much like Noel, than how come Dominic and Nathan didn't catch on sooner, and why would Fleur, a young, unmarried woman recognize Hattie's pregnancy symptoms? The motives of the villains were obscured in the story and made absolutely no sense. The entire plot was wrapped up in a neat little bow at the end, in an unrealistic way, satisfying all the characters and leaving little denouement with no explanation. All in all, I would not recommend this novel to anyone that is easily distracted by bad writing and unrealistic settings and character development.
