Review: The Honorable Heir

The Honorable Heir by Laurie Alice Eakes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Four stars because the research is excellent and no modernism!

Enchanting story. Of course, the story has been told before countless times, but Eakes gives this one a nice flair. The story has a bit of mystery, a handsome love interest who just happens to be part of the family of Catherine's late husband.

Intriguing supporting characters are cousins, the wronged fiancee, and Catherine's sister. Eakes weaves the stories together beautifully from Catherine's point of view for the most part. She doesn't take long, backstory trips that clog the story flow. The research is wonderful. However...

Writing problems plague this story. There are a lot of character introduced without developing them so that you really don't know who Tristram is and who Ambrose is and where did Florian come from? The plotline drags in the middle with too much redundancy. You can only wonder about a person being a thief so much before you just have to move along. The huge problem remains that once Catherine fell in love with a pretty face along with a bit of lust, it looks like she'd be on her guard and less likely to fall in love with another pretty face and pack of muscles. That part seems very unrealistic to the point of unbelievability.

To make this novel work well, take out about 9,000 words, tighten the 1st half, and focus on giving each main character reasons to fall in love with each other. Also coerce the villain to confess, don't just let a confession fall on the floor like a broken plate.

Received the ARC from Netgalley.

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