Romance and other things

Some of Ben Sedgwick’s favorite things:

• Helping his poor parishioners
• Baby animals
• Shamelessly flirting with the handsome Captain Phillip Dacre

After an unconventional upbringing, Ben is perfectly content with the quiet, predictable life of a country vicar, free of strife or turmoil. When he’s asked to look after an absent naval captain’s three wild children, he reluctantly agrees, but instantly falls for the hellions. And when their stern but gloriously handsome father arrives, Ben is tempted in ways that make him doubt everything.

Some of Phillip Dacre’s favorite things:

• His ship
• People doing precisely as they're told
• Touching the irresistible vicar at every opportunity

Phillip can’t wait to leave England’s shores and be back on his ship, away from the grief that haunts him. But his children have driven off a succession of governesses and tutors and he must set things right. The unexpected presence of the cheerful, adorable vicar sets his world on its head and now he can’t seem to live without Ben’s winning smiles or devastating kisses.

In the midst of runaway children, a plot to blackmail Ben’s family, and torturous nights of pleasure, Ben and Phillip must decide if a safe life is worth losing the one thing that makes them come alive.  

Review:

Dear Cat Sebastian,

I enjoyed all of your previous works, and for that reason I preordered this book as soon as I saw that Amazon made it available for the preorder.  And overall  I had a good time with the story. Same as in your previous stories the main characters were so easy to like.

Ben, who became a vicar not necessarily because of being very religious person, but because he thought that this was the best path to do the right thing , to help poor and needy parishioners stole my heart almost from the moment he appeared on page.

I liked him even more when I realized that the man did not take himself too seriously and after I saw him playing with the ducklings (don't ask!) I was a goner and only wanted the best for the guy.

Of course he would agree to look after three motherless children whose father was not back from the sea in a long time, I was pleased to see how well Ben dealt with the children.

As an aside, children characters in the romance book or any book do not usually bother me, unless I do not like how they are written, same way I may enjoy or not enjoy any adult character and I loved all three kids in this story, they felt real to me and I very much wanted them to be happy.

And when Philip comes home the sweet dance begins.  Philip may have no clue how to relate to his children after have not seeing them for few years while being at sea and he may be really used to issuing commands, but I liked him too, a lot I have to say.

It was a joy watching him relearning how to interact with the kids and actually getting to know them all over again and of course seeing him and Ben dance around each other and figure out that they cannot be without one another.

This story just as all previous Cat Sebastian's books are low on angst and for me that worked. The characters have issues to overcome, but it was done in a low key way.

Another thing I liked in all previous books by this writer was that the women our characters have to interact with are not cartoonish, not demonized and this book was no exception.

You would ask if I liked everything, why the grade is not higher then?  Simple - as much as I enjoyed the plot and the characters interacting and figuring out what to do with their lives, separately as individuals and together as a couple, I expected more creative set up. I know romance has tropes and I know sometimes it is not possible to avoid giving a nod to other creations of popular culture, but this set up read to me as almost being lift up whole sale from "The Sound of Music" and I was disappointed because of that.

Grade: B-