Review: Marrying Mr. English by Katy Regnery (English Brothers #7)

Note: This ARC was provided by Rock Star Lit PR in exchange for an honest review.

Twenty-two-year-old waitress Eleanora Watters knows what rich men who go to Vail on vacation do after they meet and sleep with a young woman from town--they leave them. She's seen it happen to her cousin one time to many, so when she's asked to be the date for the friend of the guy her cousin's interested in, Eleanora thinks it'll end up like all of her cousin's other failed attempts at hooking a rich guy. But meeting Tom English will set in motion events that neither one of them realized would change their lives forever. 

Thirty-one-year-old financier Thomas English was supposed to be married before he turned thirty-two if he had any hopes of getting his inheritance. With the wedding having been cancelled after his wife-to-be went and fell in love with someone else, Tom doesn't expect to find a willing bride just four days before the deadline. Eleanora Watters is nothing like the women he's gone out with before, but when she offers to marry him, they both go in knowing it's a temporary arrangement...'til fate and feelings get in the way.

Marrying Mr. English is a holiday novella in the much loved English Brothers series by bestselling author Katy Regnery and is told in two parts: the first as part of the multi-authored 12 Christmas Romances to Melt Your Heart anthology, and the second as a separate solo release. This review is about the novella as a whole, one that tells the story of how the English brothers' parents met and fell in love. Now, I have yet to read the first six books in the series, but I feel this can be read either before or after the original stories, plus I'm even more eager to get a move on and read the stories of the five English sons and their cousin. 

The story begins a few days before Christmas 1981 in Vail, Colorado and continues into the New Year in both Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Cornwall, Connecticut. When Eleanora Watters and Tom English meet, things move forward really quickly, and while I did guess right about certain things happening, they didn't play out the way I would have expected, lending a feeling of originality to this fast-paced contemporary romance. There's a connection but not a particularly explosive one, which belies just how quickly everything then evolves. It's always a good day when a favorite author is still able to surprise you.

Eleanora and Tom's love story proves that love isn't always simple, but when it's one that's worth fighting for, sacrifices can often reap rewards. Knowing that they end up spending the rest of their lives together and have their gaggle of five boys doesn't diminish the reading experience nor take away from what was a beautiful story about the strength and support we get from the person we're with and how the weight carried by the people in a relationship shifts accordingly so as to balance things out, especially when one is more burdened than the other. Marrying Mr. English highlights how powerful a thing love is. Five stars. ♥

Date Read: 18 December 2015

Learn more about Katy Regnery.

Purchase Marrying Mr. English:
Part One  - Amazon | B&N | Kobo
Part Two - Amazon | B&N | Kobo