Midnight's Budding Morrow by Carolyn Miller // I Read with Audra Tour, Review, and Giveaway

About the Book: Can real love grow between a wallflower and an unrepentant rogue?

Sarah Drayton is eager to spend time with her best friend at her crumbling Northumberland castle estate. Matrimony is the last thing on her mind and the last thing she expects to be faced with on a holiday. Yet she finds herself being inveigled into a marriage of convenience with her friend's rakish brother.

When James Langley returns to his family's estate, he can't be bothered to pay attention to his responsibilities as the heir. War is raging and he wants only distraction, not serious tethers. But his roguish ways have backed him into a corner, and he has little choice but to obey his father's stunning decree: marry before returning to war, or else. Suddenly he finds himself wedded to a clever and capable woman he does not love.

Sarah craves love and a place to belong, neither of which James offered before returning to the battlefront. Now everyone around her thinks she married above her station, and they have no intention of rewarding her for such impertinence. It isn't until her husband returns from war seemingly changed that she begins to hope they may find real happiness. But can she trust that this rake has truly reformed?

When tragedy strikes, this pair must learn to trust God and his plans. Will they be destroyed . . . or will they discover that even in the darkest depths of night, the morning still holds hope?

Click to read an excerpt

Regency Wallflowers: While most stories set in Regency England focus on the rich, the young, and the beautiful, award-winning author Carolyn Miller decided she wanted to give readers something different for a change. Her new Regency Wallflowers series follows the commoners, away from the hustle and bustle of 1810s London, out in the Lake District of England. She tells the stories of women who are slightly older and have few prospects for marriage, women who might be considered “wallflowers.”

Midnight’s Budding Morrow is the second book in the Regency Wallflowers series. The first book in the series is Dusk’s Darkest Shores.

Review:

Second chance at romance after an ill advised marriage of convenience. 

Sarah is a capable young woman who becomes trapped in a marriage to a man with a reputation of indiscretions. Sarah is excellent at managing the crumbling castle, she is organized and logical, responsible with a heart for others. She is a likable character, but I felt so bad for everything that she had to go through and put up with, it made it difficult to read at times.

This book is definitely a roller coaster of emotions, and it was hard to nail down characters as this or that. I found James' father to be especially infuriating. I liked that James grows a lot over the course of the book, and is learning to be a better man. And despite his past he managed to win me over as he matured. 

Overall, a book that brings to light the struggles of people more middle class than those you typically read about in this time period, definitely a lot of emotions while reading this book. This author does a stellar job of writing characters that you love to loathe, as well as ones that win you over. A story of second chances and redemption in a gothic setting.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Carolyn Miller is an inspirational romance author who lives in the beautiful Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Australia, with her husband and four children.

 

A longtime lover of romance, especially that of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer’s Regency era, Carolyn holds a BA in English literature and loves drawing readers into fictional worlds that show the truth of God’s grace in our lives. She enjoys music, films, gardens, art, travel, and food.

Miller’s novels have won a number of RWA and ACFW contests. She is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers and Australasian Christian Writers. 

 

Learn more about Carolyn at www.carolynmillerauthor.com, or find her on Facebook (Carolyn Miller Author), Instagram (@CarolynMillerAuthor), and Twitter (@CarolynMAuthor). 

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