Someone to Hold
Someone to Hold, the 2nd book in the Westcott series, focuses on Camille Westcott. Camille is trying to come to grips with her father’s bigamy and the fact that she is now penniless and no longer Lady Camille after Anna Snow—now Lady Anastasia—assumes the family fortune (as told in Someone to Love). With her sister, Camille moves to Bath to live with their grandmother. Stubborn and determined, Camille sets out to become her own woman. She starts teaching at the same orphanage where Anna once lived. But it doesn’t come easy. Adding to her troubles is the art teacher, Joel Cunningham, who also lived in the orphanage and knew Anna. A stormy, feisty relationship begins between the two, culminating in a sweet ending.
Camille’s character comes off at times rigid and difficult to like, but that’s the charm of Balogh’s writing. She takes a mostly unlikeable character, pushes her boundaries and, in the end, she becomes someone that the reader cares for. A subplot of a surprise fortune feels too familiar from the first book and too coincidental, and a thinly drawn villain’s reappearance felt forced. However, these are not enough to spoil a nice Regency romance.
