A Defense of Honor
Series: Haven Manor, Book 1
By: Kristi Ann Hunter / Narrated By: Beverley A. Crick
Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
Very much looking forward to the sequel! Huzzah!
Oh yippee! A totally clean romance with great characters, lovable kids (which is nice cuz I can’t STAND books that have precocious children as characters!), and a bit of a mystery that’s woven in on the side!
Katherine FitzGilbert is a woman on a mission, one who’s living out a destiny that involves her living absolutely away from London society. Indeed, her father sent her off to fend for herself, and she and two other women have made lives for themselves in the middle of a lush nowhere. They live to hide their secret, which is that they’ve devoted themselves to saving fallen women of society and to saving the offspring of said women. They give the women a chance to give up their children in secret and return to society; they give the children a chance to grow up loved and with skills to make it via apprenticeships or in service.
It’s all very hush-hush; it’s all very expensive. And though our hero, Graham, Lord Wharton, doesn’t know it, Kit is also the infamous “Governess” who comes calling to the society men who’ve put women in such predicaments—she’s out for money to help support their home at Haven Manor.
But as time’s gone on, Kit is out for vengeance also. She’s come to believe that all such men are unsavory, self-absorbed, certainly unwilling to do the right thing. As a matter of fact, men, period, really can’t be trusted. Don’t take that wrong! A Defense of Honor is not a man-hating book fraught with jerks. Mostly it’s about poor decisions.
And it’s about learning to trust in God, learning to have faith in one’s fellow man. It’s a sweet story about Graham finding his purpose in life as he waits for his father to die and he can become Earl (tho’ he loves his father very, very much—he is quite in limbo until he can figure out a meaning for his life).
I did have a bit of a problem with how BADLY he lashes out at Kit, whom he wholly waits in judgment upon. I mean, here comes this wayward man, and all of a sudden he’s the one who bares his teeth, much as a newfound convert to a religion decries the way others live.
Buuuuut… I got over it. After all, I liked all the characters in the book, and they behaved in such human ways, none tooooo good and none tooooo bad. Just like normal and flawed people who would dearly like love in their lives and a place to call home. Though I could’ve lived without Graham’s scorn, it didn’t make me sooooo appalled that I gave up on the story or gave up on him. I mean, that’s what apologies are for!
Good characters who are well-voiced by Beverley A. Crick who really, really does a great job at making those little kids adorable. A good plot with a nice twist or two in there. A nice depiction of London society’s shameful underbelly…
AND A SEQUEL TOOOOOOOO!!!!!
Oh yippee!!!!
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