Review: Someone Perfect by Mary Balogh

 

Someone Perfect (Westcott #9) by Mary Balogh

Publication Date: November 30th 2021

Pages: 400

Source: Publisher

Rating: ★★★★½

Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Audible | Kobo | Goodreads

My Thoughts:

Lady Estelle Lemarr is content with being single. No one has come along to tempt her, and she’s determined not to settle for someone less that her idea of perfect.  I could understand her feelings. Why settle when you’re fine with things as they are? However, that’s usually when you find love as is the case here with Estelle. The Earl of Brandon, Justin Wiley, with his broody looks and attitude immediately sets her back up and Estelle’s not inclined to like him as he hasn’t bothered to visit his younger sister, Maria, for years when she clearly needed him. But first impressions can be very wrong.

Justin had inherited the title of Earl of Brandon with the passing of his father six years earlier, but hasn’t been around his younger half sister since she was eight. With the passing of his stepmother Justin is now Maria’s guardian. He intends to live up to his duties and take Maria back to the family home of Everleigh. Maria isn’t happy with her brother at all.  Seeing that Lady Estelle and her brother Bertrand are friends with Maria, he invites them to stay to make the changes for Maria easier. He tells himself that he’s only inviting them for Maria, but his first accidental meeting with Estelle has stuck in his head and he can’t help but be drawn to her.

It took a while for me to get into the story and I didn’t even really feel any romance between Estelle and Justin until the 30% mark, but there was some time that had to be spent setting up the story. There were a lot of characters involved and it took some doing getting them straight in my head. Honestly, I just gave up after a while and concentrated more on Estelle and Justin, but by the end I think I had the different families and relations mostly sorted.

As the story goes on Estelle begins to realize her first impressions of Justin were not fair, and he began to gain her respect and admiration in the way he dealt with Maria and the many family members. Estelle had strong feelings about Justin, even at their first meeting, that she comes to realize as stirrings of attraction. Much more powerful that she wanted to admit to, and she finds herself reluctantly drawn to him at every turn.

My heart broke for Justin and all he went through because of a spiteful, selfish woman. His interactions with Estelle were muddled, but endearing. I loved the inescapable quality to their romance and the unexpected heat!

This is book nine of the series, but it’s not necessary to read the previous books. There are mentions of the previous couples and there’s a lot of extended family named, but honestly you don’t need to keep it all straight to enjoy it.

Someone Perfect took a little while to get into but ended up being so lovely! Justin and Estelle’s story filled my heart with joy!

4.5 Stars

Book Description:

Sometimes, just one person can pull a whole family apart. And sometimes, it just takes one person to pull it back together. For fans of Bridgerton, New York Times bestselling Regency Romance author Mary Balogh shows how love truly conquers all in this new Friends of the Westcotts novel.

As a young man, Justin Wiley was banished by his father for mysterious reasons, but now, his father is dead, and Justin has been Earl of Brandon for six years. A dark, dour man, he, nonetheless, takes it as his responsibility to care for his half-sister, Maria, when her mother dies. He travels to her home to fetch her back to the family seat at Everleigh Park.

Although she adored him, once, Maria now loathes Justin, and her friend, Lady Estelle Lamarr, can see, immediately, how his very name upsets her. When Justin arrives and invites Estelle and her brother to accompany Maria to Everleigh Park to help with her distress, she begrudgingly agrees, for Maria's sake.

As family secrets unravel in Maria's homecoming, Justin, too, uncovers his desire for a countess. And, while he may believe he's found an obvious candidate in the beautiful 25-year-old Lady Estelle, she is most certain that they could never make a match...