12 Days of a Kensington Christmas ~ His Mistletoe Bride

Title ~ His Mistletoe Bride

Series ~ Stantons, #4

Author ~ Vanessa Kelly

Publisher ~ Zebra/Kensington

Published ~ 1 October 2012

Genre ~ Historical/Romance

*Book source ~ Many thanks to Kensington for providing a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

My Rating ~ 4 bites out of 5

Phoebe Linville has crossed the ocean from Philadelphia to London to meet her estranged English side of the family, the Stantons. When her mother married her Quaker father, her grandfather, the Earl of Merritt disowned his only daughter. After the Earl’s son died he tried to make amends with his daughter only to find she had died some years earlier. He does make contact with his only grandchild, Phoebe, who is unhappy in her Quaker life and wants to meet her grandfather. However, upon arriving in London she finds that her grandfather died weeks earlier and his wish was for her to marry his heir, Major Lucas Stanton. Phoebe has no intention of marrying a man she doesn’t know, but Lucas is persuasive and patient. Soon she finds herself Lady Merritt and the Mistress in charge of Mistletoe Manor. Now all she needs to do is teach her husband how to love. But it’s Christmas, a time of miracles. How hard could it be?

Told from both Phoebe’s and Lucas’s POV this story is well-written with great characters. While a little over the top at times it definitely entertained me. Because of Phoebe’s upbringing she’s a complete innocent to the ways of London society. But she has strong beliefs and a personality to match when she needs to assert herself and stand her ground. She was a little too submissive at times for me to believe 100% in her personality though. Lucas is a great character, but he was also a bit too bossy for me. I’ll forgive him since he was used to leading in the Army, but he’s not in the Army anymore and running an estate is nothing like running a unit of soldiers. Anyway, I quite enjoyed the book and now I want to find the others that are loosely connected to this one.