If you’re like us and are still waiting for Bridgerton Season 3, Suzanne Enoch’s Something in the Heir just might hold you over. This regency romance provides a syrupy sweet romance with a side of found family. Emmeline and William Pershing are completely lovable in their imperfection. Their story of creating a family is, well, creative. Their choices may not always be justifiable. At the end of the day, they are just two people trying to do their best, even though they don’t always get it right.
A Not-Quite-Royal Family:
The romance itself is intriguing. Flashing forward from the glamor of the Ton to eight years into a less-than-satisfactory marriage is jarring. It’s easy enough to imagine a couple just settling into a routine. There’s obviously an underlying love here. These are friends-to-lovers, after all.
Friends-to-lovers will always be an elite level trope. There’s something authentic, though, about fast-forwarding a relationship like this to where the complacency has set in.
For lovers of the found family trope, readers will find the story in Something in the Heir is a heartwarming one. Perhaps the premise about a woman who has kept up a lie about having children that are too sickly to appear in public is far fetched. It doesn’t mean this isn’t an engaging way to kick off a charming and chaotic story about family formation.
Rose and George may be among the most rambunctious and adorable orphans put to paper since Oliver Twist himself. They’re instantly lovable, no matter how much trouble they cause.
Always Bet on Adorable Children:
The story of Rose and George poses a fascinating opportunity to view a modern issue through a historic lens. The plight of children without parents able to raise them was frankly horrific in the regency era. Something in the Heir wrestles with the fact that while yes, the children are technically provided a higher standard of living by being adopted by the Pershings, they have still faced a massive amount of trauma in their young lives. Once the Pershings begin to see Rose and George as people, everyone is better off.
If there is any drawback to the story, it’s possibly in the mystery of the “guest.” He is clearly up to no good. Rose and George have been through quite enough by being roped into criminal schemes. Frankly, it’s a credit to the Pershings and their parental instincts that they recognize when their children are being strung along by an adult who, while he may have an important connection to the children, obviously means them harm.
Bringing Everything Together:
The way that Enoch allows the Pershings to re-discover their love for one another is enthralling. She beautifully brings them back together at just the right moment. This is the strength of Enoch’s storytelling. She gives us two people who were clearly always meant to be together. Then, she has them live in disquieting comfort. When the time is right, they come back together again to make the most hardened reader believe in the power of love.
Something in the Heir is a delight from beginning to end. What it lacks in steam, it makes up for with incredible heart. Families coming together in adversity will always melt our hearts. Throw in adorable children, and you have a romance winner. When all is said and done, the Pershings are a family we can love and re-visit, over and over again.
Something in the Heir is available now.
