Monday, February 16, 2015

Book Review: Saving Grace by Michelle Paige Holmes

Title: Saving Grace
Author: Michelle Paige Holmes
Enjoyment Rating: ****
Source: Digital Copy
Content Alert: A clean read

When Grace Thatcher's mother married a drunken gambler, her father, the Duke of Salisbury, disowned her. Grace's mother ended up as a washerwoman, and then died when Grace was still a small girl, leaving Grace in charge of a brother and sister. When Grace's grandfather reinstated her inheritance, she became one of the most eligible maidens in England, but she's determined to reject all suitors to protect her younger brother and sister. All this courting takes its toll, and after being kicked out of the house of one nobleman, en route to the home of another, her carriage breaks down. She and her servants end up at the home of Nicholas Sutherland, and together they devise a scheme to thwart her father's plans to take her inheritance, and maybe even fall in love along the way.

I've been reading books by Michelle Paige Holmes for years, and this was one of my favorites. Grace was an engaging character who understood the confines of her position in society, who wanted to do right by her siblings at all costs, and who had enough spunk and intelligence to try to guard her position. I also liked Nicholas Sutherland's character, and loved seeing the change he went through at the course of the novel. This book has more plot than the romance, since Holmes spends significant time on the reconciliation between Sutherland and his brother-in-law (and a side romance takes place there). All in all, a fun read, and one I'd recommend to others.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is this your own synopsis or one from the back of the book?

Shelah said...

It's mine-- my ebook didn't have a summary. I worried, in fact, that I was giving too much away with this particular synopsis. I'll admit that I usually do check Goodreads or Amazon and read the publisher's summary before I write my reviews, mostly to brush up on the names of characters, which seem to fall out of my brain as soon as I close a book. So if my summaries appear similar to the book jacket summaries, it's probably unintentional imitation on my part.

Reba said...

I asked because it's awesome. I've been reading your recommended books for eight years now and I've always been impressed with your ability to write a paragraph synopsis. It's a gift.