Genre: Historical Romance
Age Range: Adult
Star Rating: 4 stars
Series: standalone
Blurb:
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 fulfil 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.
Blurb taken from Goodreads. Add to your shelves here.
Review:
SOMETHING IN THE HEIR is a charming, utterly chaotic story of a married couple borrowing a pair of orphans to keep their house, but get a lot more than they bargained for, and start wondering if they want a different life than their current.
Yes, this is a romance, but it’s just as much a story of found family as the Pershings and the Fletchers slowly come to trust and treasure each other. The children are the sorts of hellions you’d expect from kids who’ve grown up on the street without (reliable) adults to look after them, expecting to be taken advantage of by everyone around them. The Pershings have a very business like arrangement of career advancement and keeping their house.
Combining the two creates the best sort of chaos that forces everyone to re-evaluate their lives and wonder how much more it could be. It’s a heart warming story of choosing your family and caring about people deeply. It’s definitely idealised but that doesn’t detract from the sweetness of it.
The narrators are Emmie, Will, and the two kids, with a few odd chapters from the servants secretly waging war against the kids’ theft or falling into their own romances. Seeing so many perspectives rounds out the story and gives a lot of weight to the non-romance, which I enjoyed.
Emmie and Will are a couple who married for convenience and, eight years in, are about to discover that they might have room for more than that in their relationship. It’s a low heat, slower burn romance that’s very sweet and all about discovering new depths and aspects to someone you’ve known your whole life.
Sifa Elizabeth Reads 