Release Date: June 13, 2024
About the Author: Christina Hwang Dudley is the author of clean historical and contemporary romance. Her historical romances include the Hapgoods of Bramleigh and Ellsworth Assortment series of Regency romances, including THE NATURALIST and TEMPTED BY FOLLY.
In contemporary romance, her PRIDE AND PRESTON LIN (Third State Books, 2024) riffs on Austen, but this time the story is set in the San Francisco Bay Area, with Asian American protagonists who hail from different ends of the economic spectrum.
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MY REVIEW
Beatrice is the youngest of the Ellsworth Assortment, and her family fears she will never find love. They send her to the seaside with Tyrone and Aggie, and in a frightening bathing machine accident, she almost drowns until she is pulled from the briny waves by engineer John Clayton. From a different class than the Ellsworths, the diligent and inventive Clayton finds himself drawn into their circle. It is not until Beatrice’s affections have been engaged that he reveals he is a betrothed man, promised in matrimony to his late employer’s daughter….
This book nicely rounds out the Ellsworth Assortment series. The focus on canal building and cultivating investors adds interest to the romantic plot. Beatrice is not a vivacious young lady, but the author paints her so skillfully that she comes alive in the text. John Clayton is a man in an impossible position, one that he navigates with honor and duty. His immature fiancee Miss Brand is an amusing secondary character, and the glimpses of past Ellsworth favorites is an added delight to this novel.
Something shifted in Beatrice’s heart, and she thought, So this is what love is. For Mr. Clayton’s sake, I would have him love Miss Brand and love her dearly, and she him, so that he would never feel alone again.
-A Capital Arrangement, by Christina Dudley
Rosanne E. Lortz 