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Last week, I reviewed The Case of the Missing Moonstone, a romp with young Ada Lovelace and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Becky reviewed Love to Everyone by Hilary McKay, Death in the Stocks by Georgette Heyer, and Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne. Sim reviewed the film version of The Hours with a link to her virtual walk around Bloomsbury. Tina reviewed The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey, a book with mixed reviews, but Tina enjoyed it. Gaele reviewed A Stitch in Time by Beryl Kingston and The Foyles Bookshop Girls at War by Elaine Roberts.

Book: Someone to Trust by Mary Balogh
Genre: Historical Romance
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: 2018
Pages: 400

Source: ebook borrowed from the library

The fifth book in the Westcott series. According to the author’s website, Someone to Honor will be published in November. I’m not sure whose story that will be, but there are couple of characters in the series that I want to see get their happy ending.

Summary: The fifth book in the Westcott series tells the story of Colin (brother of Wren) and Elizabeth (sister of Alexander). Wren and Alexander were the characters featured in the third book of the series, Someone to Wed. Colin and Elizabeth meet at a Christmas house party and find much to enjoy in each other, but neither take the attraction seriously since Colin is young and off to seek a wife during the London Season while Elizabeth is older, widowed, and considering an offer of a marriage to a stable gentleman.

Thoughts: I liked this book as much as I liked Someone to Wed and more than I liked the fourth book in the series, Someone to Care (which was a good addition to the series, but one that I didn’t like enough to bother reviewing).

Mary Balogh sometimes plays with a hero or heroine who isn’t particularly likable at the beginning of the book. I enjoy that as an intellectual exercise: how will the author turn this character into hero material? In the first and second books of this series (Someone to Love and Someone to Hold), she succeeded admirably so that I grew to love the harder-to-like character. I was never quite as convinced by the hero in Book 4, Someone to Care.

Someone to Wed (Book 3) and Someone to Trust (Book 5) were pure fun for me since both characters are likable from the beginning and there are other things keeping them apart.

In the case of Someone to Trust, both Elizabeth and Colin are delightful. The most obvious thing that keeps them apart is the age difference — the hero is nine years younger than the heroine. Less obviously, but easily grasped from the title, there is an issue of trust, a trust that has to build through the book to give these two characters their happy ending.

Someone to Trust is set on the fictional country estate of Brambledean Court and in London during the Season when the ton gathers for balls, concerts, shopping, and rides and walks in Hyde Park — all deliciously British settings.

Appeal: If you enjoy historical stories featuring members of the British aristocracy during the Regency period, this series will hit the spot! Start at the beginning with Someone to Love, a book that impressed me in the way it brought to life the fantasy of a lost princess.

Have you read this book? What did you think?