Stevie‘s review of Secrets of a Scandalous Heiress (The Matchmaker Trilogy, Book 3) by Theresa Romain
Historical Romance published by Sourcebooks Casablanca 06 Jan 15

I’ve really enjoyed following the characters through this trilogy, even if I was less enamoured of the hero and heroine in Book 2 than the pair in the first book. I’ve also been enchanted by the supporting cast and delighted in learning more about a number of them by following them from one story to the next. In this wrap-up of the series, two characters from the central house party in the previous book are reunited by chance – and we also get to find out what’s been happening with the established couple who’ve been in the background throughout.

Augusta, the orphaned heiress who disastrously propositioned the previous book’s hero at the aforementioned house party, is in Bath with her married friend, Emily – the matchmaker of the series’ title. Both have recently experienced major losses – Augusta is still grieving for her parents, as well as for the romance that turned sour immediately after they died, while Emily (Highlight following for spoiler.) miscarried her longed-for daughter and now can’t bear to be around her beloved husband and sons . Meanwhile Joss, who offered his advice to the previous book’s hero, has once again got away from his demanding cousin and employer – although this time his journey is connected with his cousin’s affairs and so is not so pleasurable as his previous trip.

Augusta and Joss bump into each other while she is masquerading as the widowed Mrs. Flowers and he is attempting to track down his cousin’s blackmailer – or alternatively to raise enough money from his cousin’s lands to ensure the threat goes away. Having had her heart broken once, Augusta is convinced she will never meet anyone who will care about her rather than her fortune and desires to take a lover in order to relieve the pain of her broken heart. However, when she propositions Joss, he turns her down.

I love both the main characters in this story and could completely sympathise with their feelings of isolation – Joss is the impoverished grandson of a baron and an Indian woman, who feels himself to be outside society due to both his heritage and his financial situation – although he’s not quite a servant either. Augusta’s parents rose from poverty to found a cosmetics empire, yet society rejects her as insufficiently well-bred and the trustees who manage her fortune don’t listen to her ideas for further improving the business.

I also love the way that the way forward for Joss and Augusta is to accept every part of themselves, even after their world is brought crashing down when the identity of the blackmailer is revealed. There are also satisfactory endings for almost all the supporting characters in this story, and we get brief glimpses of what happened to characters from the two previous books. An excellent conclusion to the trilogy, even if the story did start a little slowly and take slightly longer to get going than I would have ideally liked.

Grade: B

Summary:

One good proposition deserves another…

Heiress Augusta Meredith can’t help herself-she stirs up gossip wherever she goes. A stranger to Bath society, she pretends to be a charming young widow, until sardonic, darkly handsome Joss Everett arrives from London and uncovers her charade.

Augusta persuades Joss to keep her secret in exchange for a secret of his own. Weaving their way through the treacherous pitfalls of a polite world only too eager to expose and condemn them, they begin to see that being true to themselves is not so bad… as long as they’re true to each other…

Read an excerpt.

Other books in this series: