Governess Gone Rogue by Laura Lee Guhrke
My Review:
32 years old Earl Kenyon, heir to the Marquess of Rolleston, has been widowed for 3 years and he’s father of ten years old twins.
His boys are hellions just like he was at their age.
He’d promised himself he’d never treat them as harshly as his father did with him but, since his wife’s death, he’s lost control over them altogether.
28 years old Amanda Leighton is a woman of the world, accomplished in a lot of things.
She’s earned a university education but her dream of becoming a tutor and help shaping young minds cannot come true because, in the eyes of polite society, only men can aspire to occupy that position.
Being a governess isn’t as rewarding as being a tutor.
She has the knowledge but society doesn’t believe women capable of undertaking the teaching of complex subjects and that leaves her frustrated.
There isn’t much women can do to earn money respectably and the fact she’s lost her reputation because she was betrayed by her first lover, complicates things even more.
Tired of it all, she takes her fate into her own hands and, since people wouldn’t hire her as Miss Leighton, she decides to become Mr. Seton!
Entertaining story, I enjoyed it a lot but I didn’t fell in love with it like it happened with the first book I read by this author (Conor’s Way).
All characters are sweet, and the 2 boys truly are quite something!
10 years old Owen and Colin St. Clair need to figure out a plan to make sure their father doesn’t send them away or their gray tabby cat, Oscar, would be in trouble! Who’d want a cat that doesn’t even chase mice?
If their father sends them to Harrow because they have chased away another nanny they’ll not have any say in the matter.
Suddenly a brilliant idea comes to the boys:
What if they find a mom instead of another nanny that would nag them all day?
“We’ll have to find him a girl who’s smashing enough to make him change his mind. Someone pretty, of course.”
“Someone nice. Someone who won’t put pomade in our hair and lecture us when our trousers get torn.”
Colin nodded. “She’ll have to be brainy, too, like Mama was. And fond of cats.”
Oscar meowed, as if giving his endorsement of this plan.
“There’s just one problem,” Owen pointed out. “How do we find her?”
There’s only one way to get an answer for that question: Write to Lady Truelove!
Unfortunately their plan doesn’t come to fruition and their father finds them a tutor instead.
Amanda’s relationship with Jamie’s children is very well developed and her position within his household forces him to face his children and his feelings.
Working is the only thing that’s kept him grounded and sane after the loss of his beloved wife but it doesn’t take much to bring back the hurt…
Suddenly, he felt the emptiness—that big, dark space that had been inside him ever since he could remember, a void filled for all too brief a time by the warmth and laughter of a freckle-faced girl.
His eyes stung. Blinking, he looked away, hating that he knew how it felt to have a heart in his chest instead of a gaping hole. He wished he’d never known. Then perhaps having that heart ripped out of him three years ago wouldn’t have hurt so much.
…and yet, little by little, a new awareness takes hold of him:
The life he’d had with Pat was gone and would not come back. He’d scorned that brutal truth, he’d raged against it, he’d wept over it, and finally, at last, he’d come to accept it. Resigned, he had trudged on, moving toward the future for the sake of his children, but it was a future that to his heart and mind had seemed bleak and dim, colorless and without joy.
But suddenly, he could see a different future. For the first time in three years, he could see color and light. He could see hope. He could see love.
Amanda is very aware of Jamie’s feelings toward his first wife, he truly loved her…
I think I was born cynical, and growing up, I stayed that way. I was wild and reckless, and I did all manner of mad things, and the reason, though I didn’t realize it at the time, was that I was seeking that inner joy of life. I think I’d been chasing it always, but never finding it. Then I met Pat, and it was with her that I started to understand what true happiness was. I had that with her, but when she died, it died with her, and I felt as if all the joy had vanished from the world.” He paused, lifting his free hand to cup her cheek. “Then you came.”
…but, by the end of the story, Jamie isn’t still hung up on his dead wife.
“Oh, Jamie,” she said with a sigh, “you don’t want to marry me. You don’t want to marry anyone. No one can ever replace Pat in your heart, and that’s been clear from the beginning. And anyway, I couldn’t bear to be a second-rate substitute for her.”
He grimaced at having his own words from that day in the newspaper office quoted back to him at such a moment as this. “I said that before I knew you. You’re not a second-rate anything, Amanda. Not to me.”
Falling in love with Amanda brings him back to life:
In his wildest dreams he never thought he’d fall in love again. But as he gathered Amanda against him, as he wrapped his arms around her waist and looked at her beautiful face in the mirror, his love for her overwhelmed him and awed him, and for the first time in three long, lonely years, he felt as if life was worth living.
In my opinion, there’s something missing though.
I believe it has to do with Amanda’s transition from her tutor/nanny position to Jamie’s lover/romantic interest: It’s quite rushed and it didn’t convince me.
The MC chemistry is good but it takes too much for them to acknowledge and explore it.
Their first kiss happens around the 70% mark!
From there, their relationship still moves quite slowly until Amanda’s past comes back to disrupt her life once again.
The last 20% of the book moves very quickly and, even if the HFN ending is very cute and happy, I cannot rate this book more than 3 stars.
⭐ 3 Stars ⭐
Governess Gone Rogue by Laura Lee Guhrke is book #3 in the Dear Lady Truelove series.
Can be read as a STANDALONE.
~ My Ratings ~
Plot: 2.5 / 5
Hero: 3 /5
Heroine: 3.5 /5
Secondary Characters: 4 /5 loved the kids and servants!
MC’s chemistry: 2.5 /5
Steam: 2.5 /5 ( 2 kiss- and 1 sex- scene)
Triggers: Hero is a widower father of twins, he lost his beloved wife 3 years prior and recalls her repeatedly throughout the book because she was the reason he changed his lifestyle completely.
Heroine’s first lover betrayed her trust and ruined her.
Recommended to: Historical Romance Readers looking for a story about a single dad that, trying to navigate the difficult situation after the tragic loss of his wife, his given the chance to find love again with a remarkable woman with a past of her own.
Governess Gone Rogue by Laura Lee Guhrke
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