Seeing Miss Heartstone
By: Nichole Van / Narrated By: Cat Gould
Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
A nice romance, with a very nice twist. As in: Belle’s quite the savvy business woman
Nineteen-year old Arabella Heartstone is taking matters into her own hands. After her mother shoves titled idiot after titled idiot at her in attempts to marry her off, she’s done her own research and decides to buy a man who she thinks would be a good match. Alas, Colin Radcliffe, Marquess of Blake, is mortified by the awkward proposal made by this awkward young girl who’s still awash in puppy fat. Though he’s penniless and debt-ridden, he’d rather go to India to make his fortune than marry money. He offers Arabella words of wisdom: Married women have no rights. Don’t you want to stand on your own two feet and choose how you live your life.
It’s a mind-blowing experience for young Belle, and she takes his words to heart. She’s so grateful that she anonymously sends him a business proposal. Five thousand pounds to fund business ventures, all gains and losses to be split 50-50. And that’s all she intends. Her sound business acumen with a man-on-the-ground in India, and she’s not even really going to be paying too much attention to it.
But Blake is lonely and homesick in India and turns to the anonymous business partner, known only to him as LHF, in letters, and a correspondence soon grows between the two. He thinks he’s found a mentor, a father figure; she’s found a good correspondent and definitely a good friend. She knows, as their relationship grows, that she oughta tell the truth, but dang it! There just aren’t the right words. What will she do when he comes back to England?
What I liked about Seeing Miss Heartstone is 1) You can see a true friendship growing between the two rather than an instantaneous attraction based on nothing, and 2) You can see how Belle evolves as an independent young woman who also has a really, really good head on her shoulders. She’s a heroine with a definite brain, and we see, as Blake is in India, she is in England, doing things like the London Season, yes, but also going to places like Salons where intellectual things are discussed. We see her confidence grow, and we see her as she matures into a twenty-six year old woman whose puppy fat has melted away.
The story is fraught with betrayal, misunderstanding, miscommunication, Desperate Debutantes for Blake, and Goldminers after Belle’s fortune (she inherited wealth, but she’s grown it on her own also). While the sense of betrayal causes anger and outrage, at least the audiobook doesn’t go too heavy on it, to where you want to give up on the hero. And while all that anger is raging, at least we see our heroine take it for a bit, but then she stands up for herself. So I definitely like that!
Cat Gould is a fine narrator who does well. Except for one thing. All the men’s voices are okay, but for Blake’s. Her tones for him sound like she’s bunching up her throat in an effort to hit such a low register. It’s kinda odd. But it doesn’t detract from the story at all; it’s just that I would’ve chosen a different register myself, that’s all.
All in all, I totally got my romance ya-yas out with this one. I read somewhere that it first came out in a Regency anthology (which, huzzah! I have, so I can check it out). It was first a novella, but here the story and the characters are better fleshed out. I’m glad to have heard it like this because really! I do so love how everything grew and developed. And Double Huzzah for a heroine with as much brains as heart!
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.