A Match in the Making

Jen Turano is known for her humorous romance stories.  I loved her Bleeker Street Investigative Agency series and now she has the new Matchmaker series beginning with A Match in the Making.  I've read many of her earlier books and mostly enjoyed them.  Some of the humor was a bit slap-stick for me, but this one, while a bit light, was not so much rollicking in funny mishaps, was a bit more sedate and understated in its comedy.  

Gwendolyn Brinley has been a companion to her cousin, Catriona Zimmerman, but needed a break.  So she became the employee of the local match-maker.  Unfortunately the match-maker broke her foot so Gwendolyn was thrust into the role of assistant match-maker for Society's summer season in Newport.  

Walter Townsend is in need of a wife to be the mother of his three recalcitrant children.  Gwendolyn has been tasked with finding him a wife, along with two other ladies her employer has assigned to her for the summer.  

Gwendolyn is the only one who was able to reach the children and find out what they want in a mother.  And she is the only one who can maintain discipline among them.  As she observes the chosen candidates interact with the children, she sees how truly inept they are with children in general and Walter's children in particular.  She tasks the children with watching the women at their father's ball to decide which one they feel would be the best mother to them.  When the children make their announcement, it leads to Gwendolyn's being sacked as a match-maker.  

One of the things I liked about this book is that the male characters are shown to be just as vapid as the female characters, they are all on a par with their pettiness, gossip, and posturing to show themselves in their best light while not really having a good light to show.  The humor in this book is more understated, mature, and is not directed at the main characters as much as it is to the society members as a whole. 

This will be a fun summer read, while lying in a hammock with a large glass of iced tea. 

Four Strong Stars

Bethany House provided the copy I read for this review.  All opinions expressed are solely my own.