Someone to Hold by Mary Balogh
Humphrey Wescott, Earl of Riverdale, has died, leaving behind a fortune and a scandalous secret that will forever alter the lives of his family—sending one daughter on a journey of self-discovery…
With her parents’ marriage declared bigamous, Camille Westcott is now illegitimate and without a title. Looking to eschew the trappings of her old life, she leaves London to teach at the Bath orphanage where her newly discovered half-sister lived. But even as she settles in, she must sit for a portrait commissioned by her grandmother and endure an artist who riles her every nerve.
An art teacher at the orphanage that was once his home, Joel Cunningham has been hired to paint the portrait of the haughty new teacher. But as Camille poses for Joel, their mutual contempt soon turns to desire. And it is only the bond between them that will allow them to weather the rough storm that lies ahead…
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- File Name:someone-to-hold-by-mary-balogh.epub
- Original Title:Someone to Hold
- Creator:Mary Balogh
- Language:en
- Identifier:MOBI-ASIN:urn:uuid:864446b3-e3d4-439b-83d5-1eada6707fc8
- Publisher:Penguin Publishing Group
- Date:2017-02-07T08:00:00+00:00
- File Size:571.679 KB
Table of Content
- 1. Praise for Award-Winning Author Mary Balogh
- 2. Also by Mary Balogh
- 3. Title Page
- 4. Copyright
- 5. Contents
- 6. Westcott Family Tree
- 7. Chapter One
- 8. Chapter Two
- 9. Chapter Three
- 10. Chapter Four
- 11. Chapter Five
- 12. Chapter Six
- 13. Chapter Seven
- 14. Chapter Eight
- 15. Chapter Nine
- 16. Chapter Ten
- 17. Chapter Eleven
- 18. Chapter Twelve
- 19. Chapter Thirteen
- 20. Chapter Fourteen
- 21. Chapter Fifteen
- 22. Chapter Sixteen
- 23. Chapter Seventeen
- 24. Chapter Eighteen
- 25. Chapter Nineteen
- 26. Chapter Twenty
- 27. Chapter Twenty-one
- 28. Chapter Twenty-two
- 29. Chapter Twenty-three
- 30. Excerpt from SOMEONE TO WED
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel!!! Mary Balogh is great at telling a tale that which makes you fall in love with the characters!!! Very romantic!!!
Someone to Hold, Book 2 of the Wescott series, was about Miss Camille Westcott, formerly Lady Camille Westcott, half-sister to Her Grace Anastasia "Anna" Archer, the new Duchess of Netherby, and Mr. Joel Cunningham, an art teacher in Bath. Upon the death of her father, Lord Humphrey Wescott, the late Earl of Riverdale, Camille learned that she and her siblings were not the legitimate offspring to their father, nor was their mother legally married to him, for the man had been married to another Anna's mother at the time of his marriage to Miss Viola Kingsley, making the marriage to Viola illegal. With that new knowledge, Camille's life, and that of her siblings and mother, was changed forever. Not only did they lose their titles and their standing in Society, but Camille also lost her fiance, who no longer wanted to go through with the wedding since he had only been marrying her for her dowry. Leaving London in shame, Camille and her sister Abigail, moved to Bath to live with their maternal grandmother, their brother, Harry, enlisted in the military and left for Portugal to fight Bonaparte, and their mother, taking back her maiden name, had retreated from society to live with her brother, a vicar in Dorsetshire. Joel had grown up in the orphanage with Anna, formerly known as Anna Snow, and had, at one time, even proposed to her, only for her to gently let him down. However, they remained good friends. Joel spent most of his days teaching art at the orphanage, but he also painted portraits for additional money, and in the hopes of becoming a renowned landscape artist. Although the change in circumstances had not been Anna's fault, Camille couldn't help but hold a grudge against her. Not knowing how else to rid her of the resentment she felt towards her long-lost half-sister, Camille decided the only way she could understand Anna was to "live in her shoes". By moving into the orphanage where Anna had been raised, then had worked as a teacher, Camille believed she might be able to work through her feelings. So she accepted the teaching position that Anna had vacated. I can't really say I liked Camille's character. While it was understandable that she struggled with how quickly her life fell apart, for her to blame an innocent person who was wronged more than she was for the acts of their selfish father was just stupid. She was so full of self-pity that it grew irritating how often the author harped on it. But for her to go to the very orphanage where Anna had been raised, work the same job, and even live in the same room was taking things too far. It made absolutely no sense. She was "going to teach at an orphanage school. That will show everyone." But...show them WHAT exactly? That she was an arrogant, spoiled, little rich girl who had the rug pulled out from under her and she was striking back at the one person who did no wrong? How ridiculous was that? By the end of Chapter 5, I was thoroughly bored and fed up with the "poor, pitiful me" attitude of a young woman who harped on the subject of "I have no idea who I am"...all because she lost the title of "Lady" and continued to wallow in self-pity and hatred for an innocent person who only wanted a family and to do right by them. No matter how hard everyone else tried to show her nothing had changed, she was determined to show THEM everything had and she was going to hold the world to blame. Even though she had been knocked down the ladder of titled gentry, everyone she came into contact with noted the airs of "noble arrogance and entitlement" she carried like a weapon wherever she went. It was so off-putting to constantly read about. She was definitely a judgemental piece of baggage that didn't deserve the role of Heroine in any genre of story. Reaching Chapter 7 was a struggle...and there were 23 chapters to plow through to the end. Joel's character, on the other hand, had the maturity and integrity that Camille's lacked. While he had believed himself to be in love with Anna and had, some years before, proposed to her, he was quick to understand that she had been right to reject the proposal, for the love they had was more of sibling love than romantic. There really wasn't much romance in this "romance novel". It's more like they were barely tolerating each other for most of the book. He was irritated with Camille for her treatment of Anna, and Camille was just as provoked by his support of Anna. The emotions of the book were more stilted than free-flowing and a difficult concept to imagine for a romantic story. There was hardly any humor and barely any other emotion other than angst, anger, self-pity, and jealousy. Nothing to recommend the story as one to enjoy reading. The storyline itself was...boring and drawn-out to the point that it was too easy to set down and walk away from...and possibly never return to. Camille's negative attitude tended to flood the entire story and bury anything good a reader might grasp from it. Even Joel's positivity was swamped and nearly unrecognizable due to Camille's "doom and gloom" outlook on life. This was not a story that would earn a five-star rating, sad to say. It was just wasn't worthy. Thankfully, it did finally end and I could move on to another book...perhaps not the next in the series. This book was so dreadful I needed a break before continuing on...if I do...with the series. Definitely not worth adding to the Keeper for the Shelves collection.