Tag: Dear Lady Truelove

Review: Heiress Gone Wild by Laura Lee Guhrke

Posted October 16, 2019 by Rowena in Reviews | 1 Comment

Review: Heiress Gone Wild by Laura Lee GuhrkeReviewer: Rowena
Heiress Gone Wild by Laura Lee Guhrke
Series: Dear Lady Truelove #4
Also in this series: The Trouble with True Love (Dear Lady Truelove #2), The Truth About Love and Dukes (Dear Lady Truelove, #1), The Trouble with True Love (Dear Lady Truelove, #2), The Trouble with True Love (Dear Lady Truelove, #2), Governess Gone Rogue (Dear Lady Truelove, #3)
Publisher: Harper Collins, Avon
Publication Date: September 24, 2019
Format: eARC
Source: Edelweiss
Point-of-View: Third
Genres: Historical Romance
Pages: 384
Add It: Goodreads
Reading Challenges: Rowena's 2019 GoodReads Challenge
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
four-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

Dear Lady Truelove,

My ward is driving me crazy. I have to marry her off and get her out of my life. There's just one problem…

When Jonathan Deverill promised a dying friend he'd be guardian to the man's daughter, he envisioned a girl in pigtails and pinafores, a child he could leave behind in some finishing school. Problem is, his ward is actually a fully-grown, defiant beauty whose longing for romance threatens to make his guardianship a living hell.

New York heiress Marjorie McGann wants a London season and a titled husband who can help her spend the Yankee millions she's inherited, and she thinks her new British guardian is the perfect person to help her find him. But Jonathan has no intention of letting his friend's fortune be squandered. Under his watchful, protective eye, Marjorie finds romance hard to come by...until one fateful night when her own guardian's devastating kisses makes her wonder if the greatest romance of all might be right in front of her.

Heiress Gone Wild is the fourth installment in Laura Lee Guhrke’s Dear Lady Truelove series. It features Jonathan Deverill and American heiress, Marjorie McGann, as they take that long journey toward true love..with each other. I’m really enjoying this series so when this book came up for review, I knew that I was going to read it. Laura Lee Guhrke writes some fantastic historical romances and this was another fantastic historical romance for Jonathan and Marjorie.

Jonathan Deverill fled England to America to try to find himself but to also make something of himself. Now, he’s returning to England with more baggage than he planned on. When his business partner died, Jonathan became the guardian of his late partner’s daughter. A daughter that he barely found out about right before his partner died…and now that daughter has followed him to England and she’s not a young girl like he thought but a full-grown woman? Things are definitely going to get interesting. Especially since Marjorie has no plans of returning to America. Marjorie is determined to live her best life and heading back to America to pick up teaching at the school she graduated from isn’t part of her plans. She really just needs to ditch her guardian but an unexpected attraction is simmering between them and she’s at a loss as to what to do with it all.

Guhrke did a really good job with this one. I really enjoyed getting to know Jonathan front and center and I absolutely enjoyed getting to know Marjorie. I loved how strong and smart she was and how determined she was to live her life on her own terms. Sure, she was pretty naive but seeing her really grow into herself and seeing her grow into her feelings for Jonathan made for an enjoyable reading adventure.

There’s much to like about this story. Two main characters who are easy to connect with, a love that blossomed over the course of the book and a lot of dialogue that was easy to follow along with. Each scene brought this story together in a very engaging way and I’m super glad that I read it. If you’re in the mood for a slow burn kind of romance between two very lovable characters, you should definitely add this one to your TBR piles. You won’t be disappointed.

Final Grade

Grade: 4.25 out of 5

Dear Lady Truelove

four-stars


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Review: Governess Gone Rogue by Laura Lee Guhrke

Posted January 28, 2019 by Rowena in Reviews | 2 Comments

Review: Governess Gone Rogue by Laura Lee GuhrkeReviewer: Rowena
Governess Gone Rogue (Dear Lady Truelove, #3) by Laura Lee Guhrke
Series: Dear Lady Truelove #3
Also in this series: The Trouble with True Love (Dear Lady Truelove #2), The Truth About Love and Dukes (Dear Lady Truelove, #1), The Trouble with True Love (Dear Lady Truelove, #2), The Trouble with True Love (Dear Lady Truelove, #2), Heiress Gone Wild
Publisher: Avon
Publication Date: January 29, 2019
Format: eARC
Source: Edelweiss
Point-of-View: Alternating Third
Genres: Historical Romance
Pages: 384
Add It: Goodreads
Reading Challenges: Rowena's 2019 GoodReads Challenge
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
four-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

Dear Lady Truelove...

My twin brother and I need a new mother, though Papa insists he'll never marry again. Must be nice, brainy, and fond of cats...

Lady Truelove may be London's most famous advice columnist, but James St. Clair, the Earl of Kenyon, knows his wild young sons need a tutor, not a new mother. They need a man tough enough to make his hellions tow the line, and James is determined to find one.

Miss Amanda Leighton, former schoolteacher and governess, knows she has all the qualifications to be a tutor. And while female tutors are unheard of, Amanda isn't about to lose the chance at her dream job because of pesky details like that. If Lord Kenyon insists on hiring a man, then she has only one option.

Jamie isn't sure what to make of his new employee, until he realizes the shocking truth—beneath the ill-fitting suits, his boys' tutor is a woman. An unconventional, outspoken, thoroughly intriguing woman. Despite Amanda's deception, he can't dismiss her when his boys are learning so much. Yet Jamie, too, is learning surprising lessons—about desire, seduction, and passionate second chances.

Laura Lee Guhrke has really hit her stride with this series and I’m really enjoying each book as they come out. Governess Gone Rogue is the third book in Laura Lee Guhrke’s Dear Lady Truelove series and it’s just as fun as the other books.

Jamie St. Clair has twin boys that keep running off governess after governess after governess. When he threatens to send them off to boarding school if they don’t get their act together, the boys write a letter to Lady Truelove, asking her for help in finding a woman for their father, a woman who wouldn’t mind being a mother to them. Jamie has no interest in ever marrying again because he loved his first wife with all of his heart and really wants to do without any more heartbreak so he plans on finding the boys a tutor, who could help them learn things they need to know before starting school anyway.

Amanda Leighton has lost her post as a governess when her boss tried to get freaky with her and she wasn’t having it. So while job hunting, she comes across James St. Clair, the Earl of Kenyon, talking to his friend about finding a tutor for his boys. Amanda would make an amazing tutor and she would definitely teach a pair of rowdy young boys how to be proper young gentlemen but because women can’t be tutors, she’ll never get the chance…unless she pretends to be a man.

When Amanda becomes Adam Seton for the tutor job, things pick up and never let down. I laughed so much when Adam was around. From the boys pranks to Amanda’s pranks right back, she made everything so much fun at the same time that she taught them valuable life lessons. She taught them all about consequences and seeing the way that they took to her filled me right up with feels. I even laughed when Jamie found out she wasn’t a man. LMAO. I’m not normally a fan of secrets and deliberate misleading of the main characters but Laura Lee Guhrke did such a great job with this book that I wasn’t even mad about any of it.

Amanda and Jamie were wonderful characters and I loved how Amanda worked hard on trying to make Jamie realize and fix the problems between him and his sons. The romance between Amanda and Jamie was steamy and it was sweet at the same time and I just enjoyed every minute of reading this month. I can’t wait for the next book by Guhrke. She writes wonderful historical romances that will warm you right up on cold nights. So good!

Grade: 4 out of 5

Dear Lady Truelove

four-stars


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Review: The Trouble with True Love by Laura Lee Guhrke

Posted March 7, 2018 by Rowena in Reviews | 1 Comment

Review: The Trouble with True Love by Laura Lee GuhrkeReviewer: Rowena
The Trouble with True Love (Dear Lady Truelove, #2) by Laura Lee Guhrke
Series: Dear Lady Truelove #2
Also in this series: The Trouble with True Love (Dear Lady Truelove #2), The Truth About Love and Dukes (Dear Lady Truelove, #1), The Trouble with True Love (Dear Lady Truelove, #2), Governess Gone Rogue (Dear Lady Truelove, #3), Heiress Gone Wild
Publisher: Harper Collins, Avon
Publication Date: January 30th 2018
Genres: Historical Romance
Pages: 384
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
four-half-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

Dear Lady Truelove,

I am a girl of noble family, but I am painfully shy, especially in my encounters with those of the opposite sex . . .

For Clara Deverill, standing in for the real Lady Truelove means dispensing advice on problems she herself has never managed to overcome. There’s nothing for it but to retreat to a tearoom and hope inspiration strikes between scones. It doesn’t—until Clara overhears a rake waxing eloquent on the art of “honorable” jilting. The cad may look like an Adonis, but he’s about to find himself on the wrong side of Lady Truelove.

Rex Galbraith is an heir with no plans to produce a spare. He flirts with the minimum number of eligible young ladies to humor his matchmaking aunt, but Clara is the first to ever catch his roving eye. When he realizes that Clara—as Lady Truelove—has used his advice as newspaper fodder, he’s infuriated. But when he’s forced into a secret alliance with her, he realizes he’s got a much bigger problem—because Clara is upending everything Rex thought he knew about women—and about himself. . . .

The Trouble with True Love is the second book in Laura Lee Guhrke’s Dear Lady Truelove series and as much as I enjoyed the first book, I enjoyed this book far more.

With Clara’s sister on her honeymoon with her new husband, Clara is left in charge of the family business. Everything was okay until her sister extended her honeymoon and Clara was on her own for the actual running of the newspaper. All of the content that Irene made sure was finished and ready to go has been published and new content is needed and Clara is in a pickle because she has no experience with any of that. When she’s trying to figure out what to do about a new Lady Truelove article, she overhears a conversation that gets her all riled up and just like that, she’s got an idea for her article.

Rex, Lord Galbraith, is his father’s heir but he’s got no plans to ever marry or sire any children so true love? It’s not for him. When a private conversation he has with one of his good friends is published in the Dear Lady Truelove column, Rex is pissed. Putting two and two together, he figures out exactly who is behind the Lady Truelove column and wastes no time calling her out on her shit. It doesn’t matter that she is the first woman to ever catch his attention and hold it. It doesn’t matter that he is attracted to her like he’s never been attracted to someone before. What matters is that she put her nose in the middle of something that is none of her business and ruined his friend’s life because of that.

Lady Clara isn’t surprised that Lord Galbraith figured out where he knew her from but she is freaking out that he is threatening to expose the truth behind Lady Truelove and she’ll do whatever it takes to get him to agree not to do that. When Rex finds himself working for Lady Clara, nobody is more surprised than he is but destiny awaits him and he can do nothing but soldier on.

I really liked this book. From beginning to end, I was wrapped up in Rex and Clara’s romance. I loved seeing them go from not liking each other at all to missing each other when they were apart. Seeing Clara blossom under Rex’s care and advice was pretty great too…and seeing Rex come to care for Clara?? swoon I loved seeing him fight his feelings until it was too late. He was sunk and gah, the way that he goes about trying to win Clara back? Gah, I’m such a sucker for this stuff. So good.

Laura Lee Guhrke is really impressing me with this series and I’m super thrilled to continue. I’m curious to know if Jonathan will come back and get his own story…I’ve got my fingers crossed. This was a great romance with a wonderful cast of characters and a main couple that were too cute for words. I definitely recommend.

Dear Lady Truelove Series

4.25 out of 5

four-half-stars


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Review: The Truth about Love and Dukes by Laura Lee Guhrke

Posted March 6, 2018 by Rowena in Reviews | 0 Comments

Review: The Truth about Love and Dukes by Laura Lee GuhrkeReviewer: Rowena
The Truth About Love and Dukes (Dear Lady Truelove, #1) by Laura Lee Guhrke
Series: Dear Lady Truelove #1
Also in this series: The Trouble with True Love (Dear Lady Truelove #2), The Trouble with True Love (Dear Lady Truelove, #2), The Trouble with True Love (Dear Lady Truelove, #2), Governess Gone Rogue (Dear Lady Truelove, #3), Heiress Gone Wild
Publisher: Harper Collins, Avon
Publication Date: March 28th 2017
Genres: Historical Romance
Pages: 384
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
Series Rating: four-stars

Dear Lady Truelove . . . I have fallen in love, truly and completely in love, for the first time. The man whom I hold in such passionate regard, however, is not of my station. He is a painter, a brilliant artist. Needless to say, my family would not approve . . .

Henry, Duke of Torquil, wouldn’t be caught reading the wildly popular “Dear Lady Truelove” column, but when its advice causes his mother to embark on a scandalous elopement, an outraged Henry decides the author of this tripe must be stopped before she can ruin any more lives. Though Lady Truelove’s identity is a closely guarded secret, Henry has reason to suspect the publisher of the notorious column, beautiful and provoking Irene Deverill, is also its author.

For Irene, it’s easy to advise others to surrender to passion, but when she meets the Duke of Torquil, she soon learns that passion comes at a price. When one impulsive, spur-of-the-moment kiss pulls her into a scorching affair with Henry, it could destroy her beloved newspaper, her career, and her independence. But in the duke’s arms, surrender is so, so sweet . . .

It’s been quite a while since I’ve read a romance by Laura Lee Guhrke but when I saw this book, I wanted it. The whole blurb just sounded like something I would enjoy so when my book club chose it as our first book of the year, I was stoked. The Truth about Love and Dukes is the first book in the Dear Lady Truelove series and it introduces a bunch of characters that I have to come to love and can’t wait to get to know them more.

Irene Hastings is a newspaper publisher who has worked her butt off to bring the family business back to making a profit. Her father is an alcoholic and ran the family business into the ground so when her older brother was thrown out of their home and the business, it was up to her to save the family from ruin and it was in those desperate times that Society Snippets was invented. Along with Society Snippets, which is a gossip column, Lady Truelove’s advice column was also brought to life. Lady Truelove has been dispersing love advice to readers and the current Duke of Torquil is not at all happy with the latest advice that Lady Truelove has given.

Henry Cavanaugh, the Duke of Torquil has got a lot going on. He looks after his family and that is a full-time job because everyone lives with him. His two unmarried sisters, his brother in law and two nephews, his other brother and his wife…and his Mom. His Mom hasn’t been around much lately because she’s taking some art lessons from an Italian artist and though people are speculating about her relationship with the artist, Henry doesn’t put too much stock into it until his family brings Lady Truelove’s advice column and he sees that the woman asking for advice can only be his mother and the advice that Lady Truelove gives is abominable for his mother but also for his family.

When Henry and Irene meet for the first time, I was on one hand delighted with Irene’s forward thinking and her strong will to do what is right by her readers and for her newspaper. I liked that she didn’t bow to anyone, no matter what rank they held. On the other hand, I was completely appalled with Henry’s attitude and the way that he tended to think and act on behalf of everyone in his family. Like, he didn’t trust them to make decisions for themselves.

The more that I read about Henry and why he was the way that he was, the more that I understood and while I still didn’t like it, I learned to like him. He comes a long way over the course of the book and getting to know both him and Irene was a lot of fun. I loved what they brought out in each other. I loved seeing them with their families and I really came to love the two of them together.

I will say that the beginning of the story was slow for me. It took me a while to get into it and I think that was because I wanted to strangle Henry almost from the very beginning. It took me a week of starting and stopping the book before I was finally able to push through and finish it. I’m so glad that I finished it but that slow beginning wasn’t fun. Other than the slow beginning though, this is a solid romance. The middle and ending more than made up for the beginning so all in all, it wasn’t so bad.

Dear Lady Truelove Series

Grade: 3.75 out of 5


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Guest Review: The Trouble with True Love by Laura Lee Guhrke

Posted January 24, 2018 by Tracy in Reviews | 0 Comments

Guest Review: The Trouble with True Love by Laura Lee GuhrkeReviewer: Tracy
The Trouble with True Love (Dear Lady Truelove #2) by Laura Lee Guhrke
Series: Dear Lady Truelove #2
Also in this series: The Truth About Love and Dukes (Dear Lady Truelove, #1), The Trouble with True Love (Dear Lady Truelove, #2), The Trouble with True Love (Dear Lady Truelove, #2), Governess Gone Rogue (Dear Lady Truelove, #3), Heiress Gone Wild
Publisher: Harper Collins, Avon
Publication Date: January 30th 2018
Genres: Historical Romance
Pages: 384
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
four-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

Dear Lady Truelove,

I am a girl of noble family, but I am painfully shy, especially in my encounters with those of the opposite sex . . .

For Clara Deverill, standing in for the real Lady Truelove means dispensing advice on problems she herself has never managed to overcome. There’s nothing for it but to retreat to a tearoom and hope inspiration strikes between scones. It doesn’t—until Clara overhears a rake waxing eloquent on the art of “honorable” jilting. The cad may look like an Adonis, but he’s about to find himself on the wrong side of Lady Truelove.

Rex Galbraith is an heir with no plans to produce a spare. He flirts with the minimum number of eligible young ladies to humor his matchmaking aunt, but Clara is the first to ever catch his roving eye. When he realizes that Clara—as Lady Truelove—has used his advice as newspaper fodder, he’s infuriated. But when he’s forced into a secret alliance with her, he realizes he’s got a much bigger problem—because Clara is upending everything Rex thought he knew about women—and about himself. . . .

Clara is in a pickle. Her sister runs the family’s newspaper and their most popular feature is an advice column called Dear Lady Truelove. Clara’s sister Irene is the one who answers all of the letters. When Irene left on her honeymoon she left enough material for the time she’d be gone. Unfortunately for Clara, Irene and her new husband have decided to extend their trip. Clara has to write advice to someone and she has no idea what to write because the author of the letter could be her! She’s in the same boat as the person in need of advice. She heads to a tea shop to concentrate and instead hears a man giving his friend advice on how to avoid marriage. Clara takes notes and prints almost everything he said in the Dear Lady Truelove column.

When Rex Galbraith finds out what has happened he’s understandably very angry. He confronts Clara and she eventually tells him about the column and then has a brilliant idea – have Galbraith write the column while Irene is away! He does it for a fee but this puts the two of them close together on a regular basis.

Rex has absolutely no interest in marriage – ever! When he meets Clara, however, he finds that while he normally avoids innocent women, he’s impossibly attracted to her. He can’t keep himself away – even after their pretend courtship disintegrates.

This was such a cute story. I loved how Rex just couldn’t keep himself away from Clara. She wasn’t incredibly beautiful, until she smiled that is, and then his world tilted on its axis. I loved that! I appreciated that he was always completely truthful to Clara about his plans for the future and that they could still be friends.

The end of the book was a good one and I found the HEA very satisfying. This story has friendship, love, family and sexy times – a great combination that became a really great romance.

Dear Lady Truelove Series

Rating: 4 out of 5

four-stars


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