A Fine Gentleman by Sarah Eden

A Fine Gentleman Series: The Jonquil Brothers Series Book 4
on December 8, 2008
Genres: Fiction / Romance / Historical / Regency
Pages: 256
Goodreads

London barrister Jason Jonquil has spent his entire life working to establish his identity as a gentleman, a man of refinement like his father and brothers. But when fiery Spanish beauty Mariposa Thornton walks into his office, he finds himself losing his grasp on his dignified character. The woman is infuriating, pushing him to the limit of his legendary patience. However, her case seems simple enough—a small matter of inheritance. Or so he believes.

Once a well-born lady, Mariposa fought to survive the brutalities of Napoleon’s war on Spain. She braved horrific perils and undertook dangerous missions on behalf of those fighting against the invading French army. But her greatest battle still lies ahead: after being separated from her family, Mariposa sets in motion a plan to reunite with her loved ones in England. To avoid drawing the attention of the French, Mariposa dons a carefully crafted persona to conceal her true purpose. As Jason and Mariposa are drawn together by the case, they come to know the people beneath the masks they both wear.

When the truth of Mariposa’s quest is revealed, the couple is pulled into a mystery that will test the limits of their courage—and expose the true desire of their hearts.

A Fine Gentleman is book four in the Jonquil series by Sarah Eden. I struggled through this book. The beginning had some truly hilarious moments such as the “meet cute”. It reminded me of the movie Hello Dolly with Barbra Streisand and Walter Matthau. The heroine is a beautiful Spanish beauty named Mariposa. She is skilled at the art of manipulating and she uses her skill to convince the hero barrister Jason Jonquil to work for her. It is the grumpy vs sunshine trope, but I had a difficult time liking Jason. Somewhere half way through, he began to change his curmudgeon ways, but it felt a little too late for me. I did enjoy the reappearance of Philip Jonquil and his wife Sorrel from book one. I am going to continue reading through the series but I can’t give this book more than three flowers. The story lacked to me. The main obstacle for me was the fact that there was really no villain and the characters spent so much time traveling that I started to feel trapped in a mail coach with them.