Lady Meets Earl
Grade : C+

Lady Meets Earl is the second title in Christy Carlyle’s Love on Holiday series. It features James Pembroke, a man who was down on his luck when he unexpectedly inherited an earldom, and Lucy Westmont, a woman who has always put helping everyone around her above her own wants and is eager for a break from that. She decides to visit her aunt, who is living in the house James has just happened to inherit.

When we first meet James, he has just lost nearly his entire shipping business through a bad investment and owes the villainous Beck a lot of money. When James learns he is to inherit an earldom, he believes he is saved – until his solicitor informs him the earldom is bankrupt and has no assets he can sell, apart from one house in Scotland, the same one Lucy’s aunt resides in (she had been James’ late uncle’s mistress). James resolves to sell the house no matter what and boards a train to travel there and inspect it. At the train station, James literally runs into Lucy and is momentarily dazzled by her.

Lucy is slightly less dazzled by James at first and is more than annoyed with him. That changes, however, when she is nearly assaulted by a fellow passenger and James steps in and saves her. From there, they share a train carriage (along with two other ladies) until parting ways at the station. Circumstances keep them from arriving at the house at the same time and James arrives first, only to have the staff lock him in a room, believing him to be lying about being the new owner. Lucy finally arrives and frees him. From there, they spend days together without a chaperone before Lucy’s aunt Cassandra arrives and the idyllic time she and James have spent together comes to an end.

This story starts off with a bang but fizzles out in the second half. The meet-cute is indeed cute and it gave me high hopes for James and Lucy’s relationship. There isn’t a lot of conflict between them so this is on the lighter side as far as that goes and I am here for it; I like to read low angst romances ccasionally, and this fits that bill. But nearly all the tension in book arises as a result of the conflict between James and Beck, and even then, it is not very present until close to the end.

The second half is definitely harder to get through as there just isn’t much interesting happening. James begins with thoughts about how he’s not worthy of Lucy because he has no money and because her father has a lot of it. That tends to get old with me and it is no different here. But I liked James and Lucy enough to keep going and I enjoyed the resolution of the situation with Beck.

Lucy is the more interesting of the leads and my heart is always with a bluestocking wanting an adventure. I loved that she is so willing to fight for what she wants even when James is being ridiculous and stubborn. The secondary characters are more colorful than either James or Lucy, however, and made me smile more often.

I wish the momentum the author built from James and Lucy meet at the station through the events on the train had been sustained throughout the whole novel. But I liked both of them and the other characters enough to push through the slower parts, although in the end, Lady Meets Earl doesn’t earn a full recommendation.

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Reviewed by Jessica Grogan
Grade : C+

Sensuality: Warm

Review Date : December 23, 2022

Publication Date: 11/2022

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Jessica Grogan

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