"Edenbrooke"

My Husband's cousin recommended this book to me a while ago, and I finally got around to reading it this last week. I read the whole book within 24 hours and then started reading it again the very next day because it was THAT good. "Edenbrooke", by Julianne Donaldson, is written in the Regency period and is about a young girl named Marianne. Marianne is living with her grandmother in Bath and is hating every minute of it. She longs to be back at her home in the country, but knows that it is impossible.

When her twin sister invites her to stay with her and some family friends at their country estate, Marianne could hardly get there fast enough. On her journey, after a terrifying encounter with a highway man, she stops at an inn and unintentionally claims the attention of a gentleman there. Thinking that she would never see the man again, she throws propriety out the window and decides to simply be herself. She wasn't embarrassed about it one bit until the next day when she reaches her destination and realizes that the gentleman at the inn is also the son of the family that she is supposed to be spending her summer with. The same son that her twin sister is supposedly going to 'catch' as her husband. Then to top it off Marianne beat her sister there by a week, so she has the next seven days to spend alone with him. Will she be able to rein her heart in before her sister gets there?

Marianne is a character that you will fall in love with from the first page, and her story is one that you won't be able to put down. She reminds me a little of Elizabeth from "Pride and Prejudice", because they are both independent young ladies who would rather live as a spinster than marry for anything other than love. If you are any sort of romantic then this is a book that you will eat up and then read over and over again. I am putting this on here with my highest recommendation for you to read it. Let me know what you think!