The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton by Miranda Neville

The unthinkable happened to me for a while there. I went off historical romance!

I think it was because for the last few months I've been revising and reading (over and over and over) my own historical romance and then picking up my previous (historical romance) WIP and revising that. And really, it was just all too much. I wanted something else to read.

However, last month, I finished my (first) revise of the new-old WIP and for the first time in months, wasn't spending a goodly amount of my time typing the word 'breeches'. I began to eye the new historical romance releases with a glimmer of interest.

Among these was Miranda Neville's new book, The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton. I'd previously read and very much liked The Dangerous Viscount. And I really liked the sound of the premise of Celia: Tarquin Compton, a fussy dandy wakes up half-naked and with amnesia in the Yorkshire moors. The woman who finds him, the eponymous Celia, tells him they are engaged and his name is Terence Fish.

This is untrue of course - in fact, Tarquin thoughtlessly ruined Celia's prospects with a cutting and thoughtless remark during Celia's season. He barely knows who she is. Celia makes up her story partly to punish him and partly to enlist his aid, since she doesn't believe he'll help her if she tells him the truth. There's also a nice little conceit with an erotic book Tarquin had been carrying (a real one that Neville read in the British Library) that tells of the sexual adverntures of one Francis Featherbrain.

And yes, I did enjoy it. It fairly rollicked along, with a hero and heroine who were neither of them perfect but both very likeable (once Tarquin's behaviour was explained). It had a nice little mystery in the form of a missing jewel, lots of fun humour, great love scenes and a nice satisfying ending. I particularly liked Celia's reluctance near the end of the book to marry Tarquin due to the fact that she could never be all fashionable and cool like him and she couldn't see how that wouldn't become a problem at some point. I liked the way she articulated those reservations. I didn't have that irritating me-is-not-good-enuff -for-oo feel about it that drives me WILD about rejected proposals. It was all about whether she would be happy and her very real concern that she wouldn't. She made him choose her and convince her to marry him and that was nice. It felt nicely balanced at the end, power-wise.

So there you a go. A very good, entertaining read that's got my historical mojo back up in working order again.

Thanks to the lovely Janet Webb for the book!