The Muse of Maiden Lane

The Muse of Maiden Lane
Mimi Matthews
384 pages
Berkley

From Goodreads: 

Stella Hobhouse is a brilliant rider, stalwart friend, skilled sketch artist—and completely overlooked. Her outmodish gray hair makes her invisible to London society. Combined with her brother’s pious restrictions and her dwindling inheritance, Stella is on the verge of a lifetime marooned in Derbyshire as a spinster. Unless she does something drastic…like posing for a daring new style of portrait by the only man who’s ever really seen her.

Aspiring painter Edward “Teddy” Hayes knows true beauty when he sees it. He would never ask Stella to risk her reputation as an artist’s model but in the five years since a virulent bout of scarlet fever left him partially paralyzed, Teddy has learned to heed good fortune when he finds it. He’ll do anything to persuade his muse to pose for him, even if he must offer her a marriage of convenience.

After all, though Teddy has yearned to trace Stella’s luminous beauty on canvas since their chance meeting, her heart is what he truly aches to capture….

Having read the first three books in the series through NetGalley, I was thrilled to find and be approved for the fourth. The heroines in this series are some of the best in romance. They're fiercely independent and loyal to each other and their horses, but it's also refreshing to see their husbands support them in all their endeavors. What's more, none of the men are stereotypical dukes with wealth beyond imagination. Teddy lives comfortably off his earnings from the family perfume business but is not filthy rich. 

But I digress. Stella, our heroine of the hour, is fabulous. Her gray hair has made her an enigma in society and also ridiculed. She believes she has to hide her hair to find a suitor causing a small debacle with some hair coloring at a holiday house party. Stella is not well off; her only family is her reverend brother about to be engaged to a tiresome young woman. He is very strict with Stella and it's rewarding watching Stella grow as a person and escape his plans for her. 

The plot is simple but charming. Stella and Teddy are cute together even if they don't realize it. They think they're entering into a relationship of convenience when really it's so much more than that. They both have to grow out of their self-consciousness to be free to love each other. 

This is the fourth and (I believe) final book in Mimi Matthews's Belles of London Series. Though the book can be read independently from the others, I highly suggest reading them all, as they are each delightful in their own way. Thank you so much to NetGalley and especially Berkley for the advance copy of the book. As always, my opinions are my own. 

Dear Hanna

 

Goodreads says: Hanna is no stranger to dark thoughts: as a young child, she tried to murder her own mother. But that was more than sixteen years ago. And extensive therapy—and writing letters to her younger brother—has since curbed those nasty tendencies. Now twenty-four, Hanna is living an outwardly normal life of domestic content. Married to real estate agent Jacob, she’s also stepmother to his teenage daughter Joelle. They live in a beautiful home, and Hanna loves her career as a phlebotomist—a job perfectly suited to her occasional need to hurt people. But when Joelle begins to change in ways that don’t suit Hanna’s purposes, her carefully planned existence threatens to come apart. With life slipping out of her control, Hanna reverts to old habits, determined to manipulate the events and people around her. And the only thing worse than a baby sociopath is a fully grown one...

Zoje Stage has said that while Baby Teeth was written before Dear Hanna, she designed them to be read in any order. If you read Baby Teeth before this, then maybe you will get where I'm coming from. If you haven't read Baby Teeth, READ IT. Because it's worth it whether or not you ever read this book.

Bet let's focus on Dear Hanna, which I was so excited to read because, hello sequel! Hanna as an adult? Hanna with her own family?! I needed deets as if it were a reality show I was hopelessly addicted to. But the deets were slow to come and not very exciting. Hanna thinks she lured herself a man but he asked her out first. Hanna thinks she the glue that holds the family together, but when the drama starts, it's obvious Hanna is playing mostly from the sidelines, so she must devise a way to make herself the center of attention. That she does in spectacular Hanna fashion, but to me it was too little. The big twist at the end? You've already figured it out.

I'm sad this wasn't a great read for me, three stars, but I am glad I read it.