A Proper Charade by Esther Hatch

It has been a while since I read a ‘regency romance’ which had only romance and no mystery or additional plotline. I read quite a few in college and then reached a saturation point. It has been a decade since then, but I never binged like that again. I have seen quite a few available but never really got around to requesting it. This, somehow, luckily slipped through the cracks.

We meet our Un-ladylike Lady Patience. She is tired of her brother insisting that she has it easy. To prove her stamina, she decides to impersonate a maid in the household of the man who her brother served under. Once she gets her foot in the door, she finds herself involved in more plots than just hers. There is nothing surprising about the way the story unfolds, but the characters are truly lovable. The romance felt natural and expected and I shed a few tears for them as well. The sibling relationships as well as the (initially) flaky mother are all shown in a very genuine light. There are misunderstandings, secrets as well as more impersonations. Quite a few of the scenes made me chuckle out loud. Overall, I had fun reading this book! I do not want to describe our leading duo in more detail because the gradual increments with which we get to know them was more than half the pleasure.

This is pretty much the same storyline as The secret countess by Eva Ibbotson but equally well done.The style is different but I did laugh and cry.I never reviewed the secret countess on my blog but the Orang-utan Librarian has : here

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience and my prior reads with similar storylines.