A Rival Heir by Laura Matthews

[meganbmoore]

I haven’t read many of Laura Matthews’s Regencies, but those that I have I’ve liked because they’re unusual enough to not blend in with the rest, but not so unusual as to be weird. A Rival Heir is, perhaps, unusual in its straightforwardness and relatively mundane complications, which are simple enough to be unique in their approach if only because most fiction is concerned with being complex.

Nell Armstrong’s mother ruined herself when she ran off to marry a farmer, and when her parents died, Nell turned to her cantankerous Aunt Longstreet for a home. On a trip to Bath, Nell meets her aunt’s godson and heir, Hugh Nowlin, as well as Hugh’s sister, Emily, who decides to “rescue” Nell from her life as a companion, and Lord Westwick, who was once engaged to her aunt.

Nell and Hugh’s romance is charming and straightforward, Emily’s campaign both irritated and amusing, like Emily herself, and the mystery of Aunt Longstreet and Lord Westwick’s past works with the question of whether or not Nell’s situation can be improved to provide conflict without being irritatingly overwrought.