"Just One Season in London" Review

"Just One Season in London"
by Leigh Michaels

Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Release Date: July 1, 2011 
Source: ARC sent by publisher

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Summary from goodreads.com:

Viscount Ryecroft has a beautiful sister he needs to marry off... if only he had the money for her Season in London.
His family is in financial ruins, and his mother is willing to do anything to help her children, including sell herself to the highest bidder...
Sophie Ryecroft will sacrifice love to marry for the good of her family... but instead finds passion and solace in an attractive alternative.
With so much riding on their one and only Season in London, Rye, Sophie, and Miranda can't help but get hopelessly entangled with all the wrong people...
Celebrated author Leigh Michaels effortlessly weaves three tales of unexpected romance with surprising twists you won't soon forget.

My Review:


I really appreciate the author trying a different format for this book, but at the same time, I really missed my warm and cozy, familiar historical romance format!

Instead of introducing a hero and heroine with alternating points of view, and maybe a supporting romantic couple, this book had three leads and three love interests.  This was too many romances for me to keep up with. I couldn't really get invested in any of them. I really liked the author's previous book with three separate but interconnected short stories, and I think I would have liked this one more if it had been in that format.

Miranda and Marcus' story was the most interesting to me. They already had a history together to build on. I would have loved to have seen their story grow more because there was a lot to work with there. I think Sophie's romance could have been the best of the three, but the least amount of time was devoted to her love story. Poor Rye was a great character, but his romance was so predictable.

There are lots of balls and operas with many misunderstandings and rumors. Fans of this type of Regency are sure to love this book. If you are more interested in the "he said, she said" of the Regency social circle and won't mind if the romances aren't fully fleshed out, you will most likely enjoy this book.


Main Characters: 3/5
Supporting Characters: 3/5
Setting: 4/5
Romance: 3/5
Uniqueness: 4/5
Cover: 4/5
Writing: 4/5


Bottom Line: Overall, heavy on the Regency social scene, lite on the actual romances.