Winning Miss Winthrop
In 1816 England, estates were usually entailed to male heirs. Therefore, when Lord Walter Winthrop died without male heirs, everything went to a distant cousin, leaving his widow and two daughters in constrained circumstances. When the new lord, Jonathan, and his mother moved into the manor, the former residents moved into the dower house on the estate. Kate, the elder daughter, continues to visit and help the tenants, as she had when her father was the lord. Jonathan and Kate had been great friends as children, but now her family regards Jonathan as no better than a thief. Unable to bear her low status, Kate’s mother moves the family to Bath to live with her sister. There, Kate is taken up by an older man, a general, which leads to jealousy on the part of Jonathan, who is struggling with his new position as lord. The rumors surrounding his birth, and his personal wealth, which comes from trade, do nothing to help matters.
In Winning Miss Winthrop, Carolyn Miller has taken the usual boy-meets-girl plot and written an interesting story, full of period details and believable situations and predicaments. This is a good book to take to the beach, or to read on a rainy summer afternoon. It rates high marks.
