2.5 stars

Isabella Latham is accompaning her two cousins for their season,a spinster of 26 she doesnt except to be more than a chaperone for them.
One day while at the modistes she comes upon a little girl who is quickly revealed to be the Earl of Hartleighs ward.

The earl himself soon arrives and mistakenly believing Isabella is the modistes assistant brusquely dismisses her,just to be set straight by Isabella that she is in fact a lady.They dont get off on a good foot.

Since his ward Lucy wont stop talking about her wonderful "Missbella" he starts to consider getting married so she will get a female rolefigure in her life. He did promise her deceased father he would take the best care of her.This decided he starts to look for a suitable bride.

Meanwhile Isabella has also entered the social season with some unsuspected sucess when word got out that she was an heiress she started to get more and more interesting to the fortune hunters.

Among these is Basil Trevelyan cousin of the Earl of Hartleigh who has set his sights on Isabella and her monies.And the fact that Hartleigh has been taking an interest in her only adds to her charm,since Basil resents his cousin for inheriting the earldom when he himself is penniless. Isabella finds himself a

As Hartleigh and Isabella starts to become more acquainted,Basil tries everything he can to sever their relationship and compromise Isabella so she will have no choice but to marry him.And if that wont work hes got an ace up his sleeve in the form of a secret her mother has concealed.

This book has a lot of the themes I love. Plain but smart spinster,handsome but gruff hero who learns to see behind appearances.

But somehow it just didnt click with me.It just felt like I couldnt fully connect with the characters.Being one of her earlier books I think she has evolved since then but I could detect similarites with some of her later works.At least it wasnt as bad as [b:The Devil's Delilah (Regency Noblemen, #2)|1386109|The Devil's Delilah (Regency Noblemen, #2) (Regency Romance)|Loretta Chase|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1227293569s/1386109.jpg|1376161]

Also the thing with Isabellas mother and her marriage to Isabellas biological father and him losing his memory felt very plastered on and convoluted.It could easily have been removed from the story. But I guess the author thought she deserved a happy ending.

Also another thing I did like was that the villain wasnt this cardboard cutout(Some of the funnier bits were between him and his friend.) who did bad things for the sake of it.But actually had reasons and motive for his actions even if they werent good ones.And he also gets his redemption in [b:The English Witch|1340252|The English Witch|Loretta Chase|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1189859707s/1340252.jpg|1329824]

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If Chase came out with this book today I would be disappointed and give it two stars. It is considerably weaker than her others. But, for a first try at something I think it's quite good. Also, multiple HR authors that I like now had *horrible* first books that were offensively bad, this one is positively great in comparison. Even more so considering it was written 30 years ago! And it's nice that it's short, so you can get on with reading more of her later work. ( )

The book keeps telling us that Isabella is intelligent....however, I thought she seemed remarkably stupid. Just ok. ( )

Enjoyable fluff. Not any different from every other Regency romance. That is sort of what makes these enjoyable. A guaranteed HEA. ( )

This book is Loretta Chase's debut, and for a first book it's pretty good. There are glimmers of the Chase to come, but the plot development is quite confusing, although I suspect that some of my confusion could be blamed on bad Kindle formatting. Scene shifts in mid-chapter, which ordinarily might be marked by extra spacing, a wingding, or a dropped capital, were not marked in any way.

The plot itself was quite good, and I would love to see how today's Loretta Chase would write this book. ( )