This is the 4th book in the “Daughters of Mannerling” series and it only gets better. In “Folly” the Mannerling Estate is without an owner once again and the Beverley sisters are anxious to know who the new owners will be. When Charles Blackwood, a widower with two adorable children and his father, General Blackwood buy Mannerling, all hope to regain ownership of their old home through marriage to a new owner seems out of reach as Charles is already 40 years old and is too old for the girls. Their mother, Lady Beverley thinks she may have a chance with General Blackwood and plays to the gallery but the General seems to be smitten with Miss Trumble the governess which complicates everything.
Beautiful Rachael who is the oldest of the remaining three Beverley girls is hoping to find a match for herself and is delighted when a charming but mysterious plantation owner appears on the scene. However, Miss Trumble, the ever efficient governess is suspicious of his background and tries to investigate him before Rachael makes the biggest mistake of her life.
This is not a flat out romance novel where boy meets girl, they hate eachother and later fall in love. This is different. I love the way the author throws in a lot of mystery, suspense and humor into the story and this makes it a quite enjoyable read and leaves you pinning for more. As always with romance, the story ends well and there is a happily ever after that thugs at your heart strings.
I highly recommend this book or better still, the entire series. I am excited to read the next book “Romance” and I will definitely give you a feedback on that one too.
Rating: 4 Stars
Published: 2014 by Constable & Robinson
Pages: 216
Genre: Historical Romance (Fiction)
Purchase @ www.amazon.com/folly
The Author: Marion Chesney was born on 1936 in Glasgow, Scotland, UK, and started her first job as a bookseller in charge of the fiction department in John Smith & Sons Ltd. While bookselling, by chance, she got an offer from the Scottish Daily Mail to review variety shows and quickly rose to be their theatre critic. She left Smith’s to join Scottish Field magazine as a secretary in the advertising department, without any shorthand or typing, but quickly got the job of fashion editor instead. She then moved to the Scottish Daily Express where she reported mostly on crime. This was followed by a move to Fleet Street to the Daily Express where she became chief woman reporter. After marrying Harry Scott Gibbons and having a son, Charles, Marion went to the United States where Harry had been offered the job of editor of the Oyster Bay Guardian. When that didn’t work out, they went to Virginia and Marion worked as a waitress in a greasy spoon on the Jefferson Davies in Alexandria while Harry washed the dishes. Both then got jobs on Rupert Murdoch’s new tabloid, The Star, and moved to New York. Anxious to spend more time at home with her small son, Marion, urged by her husband, started to write historical romances in 1977. After she had written over 100 of them under her maiden name, Marion Chesney, and under the pseudonyms: Ann Fairfax, Jennie Tremaine, Helen Crampton, Charlotte Ward, and Sarah Chester, she getting fed up with 1714 to 1910, she began to write detectives stories in 1985 under the pseudonym of M. C. Beaton. On a trip from the States to Sutherland on holiday, a course at a fishing school inspired the first Constable Hamish Macbeth story. They returned to Britain and bought a croft house and croft in Sutherland where Harry reared a flock of black sheep. But Charles was at school, in London so when he finished and both tired of the long commute to the north of Scotland, they moved to the Cotswolds where Agatha Raisin was created.
