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From the blurb:

Smart, capable heiress Emmeline Pershing will do anything to keep her beloved home; and all it takes is an arranged marriage and a teeny white lie to fulfill her family’s silly inheritance rules! But now her little fib means that she and her completely unsuspecting husband are going to inherit big — and very messy! —trouble in this spicy, sexy delight from bestseller, Suzanne Enoch.

Emmeline and William Pershing have enjoyed a perfectly convenient marriage for eight years. Their relationship is a seamless blend of their talents and goals. They’ve settled into separate, well-ordered lives beneath the same roof, and are content to stay that way—or so Emmeline thinks. And if William has secretly longed for a bit more from the woman he adores, he’s managed to be content with her supreme skills as a hostess and planner, which has helped him advance his career.

Then when Emmeline’s grandfather, the reclusive Duke of Welshire, summons them both for his birthday celebration and demands they bring their two little angelic children, William is stunned to discover that his very proper wife invented not one, but two heirs to fulfill the agreement for living at Winnover. But surely if Emmeline and William team up and borrow two cherubs to call their own, what could go wrong? Enter George, age 8, and Rose, 5—the two most unruly orphans in Britain.

As the insanity unfolds, their careful, professional arrangement takes some surprisingly intimate turns as well. Perhaps it takes a bit of madness to create the perfect happily ever after.

Publisher: St.Martin’s Griffin
Publication Date: September 20th, 2022
Purchase Link

My thoughts:

My first book by Suzanne Enoch and, now that I’ve discovered her witty and entertaining writing style, it won’t be the last.

The premise was hilarious- Emmeline has to get married as soon as possible in order to secure her place in her own house. The house is ‘on the lease’ from her grandfather the Duke of Welshire. Once it gets vacated, the first girl in her generation to get married secures the use it for five years and should she have a child in the following five years, she and her spouse can stay there for all their life. Emmie’s horrible cousin just got engaged, so the news of her own parents leaving the house and moving to Bath comes as a bit of shock and a call to action. On the spur of the moment, Emmie proposes a marriage (of convenience) to her childhood friend Will Pershing, who (unbeknowst to her) has been harbouring tender feelings for her. Match, set, marriage! Winnover House is hers…for the time being.

Fast forward eight years and our fabulous protagonist finds herself in a new predicament. While her marriage to Will may be considered an exemplary partnership, the couple are childless, so Emmie might have been less than completely truthful when she informed her family that she has two sweet, but unfortunately very sickly children. Now the Duke is summoning all his close and distant relations to celebrate his birthday and would love to see Emmie and her family. Including the non-existent children. It turns out it isn’t that easy to borrow two children for a few weeks and pass them as your own offspring…Still our enterprising protagonists succeed in finding two orphaned siblings George and Rose Fletcher. Now the destiny of Winnover House and the couple’s reputation will depend on the feisty orphans’ ability to pass for Flora and Malcolm Pershing. No pressure!

It is quite hard to classify this book- there’s a lot of comedy for sure, but just a tiny bit of romance as Emmie and Will re-discover the joy of attraction to each other. The romance in this book is absolutely secondary to …everything else that is happening, above all, the children’s shenanigans and Pershings gradually developing a better understanding of what being a parent or a guardian involves. I did want more romance or failing that more friendship/that elusive understanding that good couples have. At the beginning Emmie Pershing is totally oblivious to anything but her own socialite role. As the plot develops, this changes and she finally sees the light and her own very attractive and incredibly patient husband. To be fair to Emmie, she had a very cold and emotionless role-model of her own mother, so discovering that she herself might even want to be a parent is going to take some time…and some pages.

George and Rose are adorable: strong-willed, resourceful, independent and completely right for their age. Again there’s a bit of repetition as both the children (especially George) and Pershings go through a change of heart and build up some kind of trust. Perhaps the book could have been shorter, especially had another character, important to the children, not been introduced, but boy, did he ratchet up some drama!

Of course, there’s only one way in which this romcom could end, but this predictability comes from the internal plot logic and character development and I never say no to a HEA in my romance books.

Overall: more on the comedy side than romance, but also sweet (don’t let that king-size bed on the cover mislead you), entertaining, and fun. Recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley and St.Martin’s Griffin for the review copy provided in exchange for an honest opinion.