LOL scenes. It was a very entertaining story. I wished we got to know Radcliffe better though. Overall, funny, Love the strays. ( )

comedic ( )

Charlotte and her twin sister Elizabeth must find away to escape from their desperately indebted uncle who plans to sell them into marriage - Charlotte to a brutal lord who has beaten and killed three wives so far. To escape the notice (and scandal) that would inevitably follow two young women travelling alone, Charlotte poses as Beth's brother "Charlie". Everything was going according to plan until they met Lord Jeremy Radcliffe who took them under his wing - to give the girl a Season to make a love match, and to make a man out of Charlie. The girls switch off playing the boy which leads to delicious confusion as Radcliffe simply cannot fathom why he is sometimes drawn to the sister, and is sometimes strangely attracted to her brother.

Charlie manages to get herself into all kinds of trouble by getting others out of it. She picks up stray maids, cooks, children and puppies; she brawls with a farmer, and she must avoid the attentions of the lovesick sister of her twin's beau. I love Charlie's warm heart, her adventurousness, and the scrapes she invariably finds herself in. And the last several chapters of the book - when the adventure really takes off - are wonderful. Unfortunately we're not treated to as much of the fun (or problems) Charlie meets while masquerading as a boy, nor do we really get to enjoy her chances to shine as a woman.

The premise of this novel was exactly up my alley, but for some minor reasons it didn't make its way into my favorites. The story is downright hilarious (especially when Radcliffe decides to take Charlie to a brothel to cure him of his 'missishness'), but Elizabeth isn't really a character for most of the novel, and Radcliffe's reasons for holding himself so aloof from those his own age are never truly explained.

I think part of the reason I became so disgruntled with the book were the egregious spelling errors (not frequent, but too blatant to overlook). But I adore the cover, and the story is certainly worth a read. ( )