Review: Seducing the Governess by Margo Maguire.

Posted February 11, 2011 by Rowena in Reviews | 1 Comment

Publisher: Avon, Harper Collins


Rowena’s review of Seducing the Governess by Margo Maguire.

Hero: Nash Farris, Earl of Ashby
Heroine: Miss Mercy Franklin

A Proper Governess Should Never. . .
Assist a handsome stranger, alone on an unfamiliar road . . . unless the rake happens to be her new employer.
Take a position in a crumbling manor . . . especially if the household staff has been replaced by unruly former soldiers.
Allow her young charge entrÉe to her heart . . . for once done, it will be impossible to maintain proper distance.
Permit her charge’s uncle a breathtaking kiss under a star-lit sky . . . henceforth she will most certainly lose composure whenever he is near.
And above all, she should never, ever fall completely, irreversibly in love with her employer . . . for nothing good can possibly come of it.

This was a really fast read for me and I really enjoyed it. The book follows Nash Farris as he tries to bring his childhood home back from the poor house. While he was fighting at Waterloo, his brothers were being dying, leaving Nash (who is the youngest son) to inherit the family title and try to fix things up. They also left him to find out what the heck is going on. When Nash returns home from the war, he finds out that he’s got a lot of work cut out for him. His childhood home is falling down around him, his brothers are both dead and he’s got a whole lot of questions and no answers in sight.
He’s also got his brother’s daughter, Emmaline to worry about as well. He kicked her nurse out of the house because he couldn’t stomach her so the only people around to help him raise her are the men he brought home from the war. The soldiers that didn’t have anywhere else to go.

Enter Mercy Franklin.

Mercy just lost her parents and found out that they weren’t her true parents so along with not having anywhere to go, she’s also got a whole lot of questions herself but the difference between her and Nash is while Nash wants those answers and is willingly going about trying to find those answers, Mercy is scared of what the answers to her questions might lead. She’s got her adopted mother’s journals and from the brief reading that she did of it, she doesn’t like what she saw and she’s not quite ready to face the music where all of that is concerned so she throws herself into her job as the governess to Lady Emmaline Farris.

Emmy is a very shy young girl who has lost much so Mercy throws herself into making sure Emmy knows that she’s not alone any longer and it was her relationship with Emmy along with Mercy’s relationship with Nash that I thoroughly enjoyed about this book.

Both Nash and Mercy are chasing different things but the one thing that is constant between the two of them is the mutual attraction that they’re fighting. Nash needs funds and the only way that he can get that is by marrying rich but how can he think about marrying someone else when the one woman he wants lives under his roof already? Then there’s Mercy. She’s fallen in love with Nash against her better judgment but how can she love him and let him go off to marry someone else? It will kill her.

What I liked about this book was the way that the romance between Nash and Mercy is written. They were great characters apart but together is when I enjoyed them most. Nash is a soldier through and through, he’s having recurring nightmares from when he almost died and the scars from the war are evident on his face. Because of these scars, he feels that he’s so ugly that no woman could ever come to care for him because of his ugly face.

This part of the book was my least favorite part of the book. The way that Nash saw himself. I mean, if they dug deeper into why he thought the way that he did or if they showed how he had ample reason to think the way that he did then maybe it would have worked but because it wasn’t dealt with, I felt like it fell flat and didn’t fit with the Nash that I had built up in my head.

Overall, the story was great. It was easy to fall into, the characters were easy to relate to but there were some things that I wish were fleshed out more. Nash’s issues with his face, Mercy’s issues with her grandfather and the ending. The ending felt a bit rushed with everything coming to a head within a few pages but it wasn’t enough to ruin my enjoyment of the book as a whole. It was a solid story, one that I enjoyed and would recommend to historical fans out there. It’s a good read.

4 out of 5.

This book is available from Avon. You can buy it here or here in e-format.


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