Brentwood's Ward

In general, I love Regency fiction, and I was all prepared to love Brentwood's Ward by Michelle Griep.

I'll start with the good stuff first: The plot moves along quickly so that it is a fast read. The settings are described well without pulling the book into serious dullness. The character descriptions are so well done that it is easy to picture them in your mind as you read. Michelle has included characters the reader loves to hate, who have no redeeming value at all, and who add to the humor of the book.

Now the bad stuff: There are so many characters that it is hard to find them with any depth. I am sure there are depths to Emily Payne that I never plumbed, but they just weren't in the book, and the same goes for Nicholas Brentwood. On the surface, Emily is just a flibbertigibbet who cares more for bonnets than anything else. Nicholas is a Bow Street Runner hired to protect Emily while her father is away on a trip. Emily's father knows danger is lurking just around the corner. I am not sure why Nicholas has better character development than Emily, but I felt they needed equal footing in the book.

One caveat here: These are my OPINIONS. Someone else may like the book better than I did, I just felt that there were too many characters to give them the depth they were due. The story moves along quite well, but it felt just a little bit too shallow for me. Four Stars.

Shiloh Run Press provided the book in exchange for my honest opinion.