Chase, Loretta - Not Quite a Lady

This is the fourth installment of Chase's series on the Carsington brothers, all of which I've enjoyed so far, with the exception of Lord Perfect, which wasn't bad, but was boring.

Darius Carsington has been tasked with restoring an old estate within a year, or else get married. Charlotte Hayward is a twenty-seven-year-old not-really-a-spinster; she's charming and beautiful and for some reason never got married, despite everyone loving her. This is largely because she has perfected the art of Not Getting Married, right down to introducing prospective suitors to other prospective brides.

Little does anyone know that Charlotte had an illegitimate child ten years ago.

The back cover made this sound like one of those "handsome rake decides to seduce perfect lady and break down her perfect-ness on a whim" type plots, but it actually isn't. Darius is supposedly a rake, but he decides right off that someone's virgin daughter is off limits. And while both Darius and Charlotte are attracted to each other physically, they find that they genuinely enjoy the other's company as well.

This is a surprisingly angst-free book, considering the whole illegitimate child bit, and I particularly loved how the revelation of Charlotte's Big Secret was handled. See, if more romance heroes were like that, I wouldn't feel the need to slap them silly all the time. Even the person set up as the villain is honestly trying to do the right thing; he just doesn't realize that his idea of the right thing... isn't. I am wondering if Chase will pick up his story down the line, given how long this series is getting.

There are a few mentions to the prior Carsington books, but mostly only as Darius mentioning his family or Charlotte mentioning meeting one of his brothers. There are thankfully no cute "couple from prior book has sexy scene," and only one offspring shows up. I am ok with that, given that it was at a family event.

All in all, I had a lot of fun reading this, I liked all the characters, and it made me happy.

Links:
- minnow1212's review (scroll down, spoilers behind cut)
- gwyneira's review
- kate_nepveu's review

Heroes 1x22 Landslide

Spoilers for the episode and the promo!

( When is it next week?! )