Member Reviews
“I love you so much. You are my sun and my moon. You are every star in the sky, every flower on earth. But I cannot be with you.”
📖How to Train a Viscount 📖
🖋 Bianca Blythe
📚 Series: Yes. 4th installment but can be read as a standalone.
📚 Genre: Historical Romance.
📚 POV: Alternating third person between two leads.
📚 Cliffhanger: No.
⚠ Content Warnings: Murder and attempts of.
Adam is an assistant-turned-viscount when his employer met an untimely death. While travelling from Cape Colony to Brighton, he is contemplating his new life after witnessing then escaping a murder. Adam has no experience being someone rich, let alone royalty, luckily he meets Lady Isla McIntyre.
Lady Isla was once betrothed to the Duke of Belmonte but the engagement was cut off quite publicly when the Duke eloped with somebody else. Thinking her life was doomed to spinsterhood, she was just taking life one day at a time. Until she stumbled into Adam, new Viscount of Tremont, now seeking her help on etiquette and other things nobility.
Despite all the lies and dark pasts, these two found it easy to be honest with each other and help each other out. Of course, romance ensues, but questions of selfworth and a sudden dose of danger threatens to ruin a promising love story.
I love how entertaining of a read this was. Quite quick and a little different to what I was expecting. I checked out earlier installments of the series and seeing all three former couples cameo-ed here, I am very very tempted to read them all.
Much thanks to NetGalley, Victory Editing and Bianca Blythe for this complimentary copy. This review is voluntary and opinions are fully my own.
☁ THE CRITERIA ☁
🌻 Blurb:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
🌻 Hero:⭐⭐⭐⭐
🌻 Heroine:⭐⭐⭐⭐
🌻 Support Characters:⭐⭐⭐⭐
🌻 Writing Style:⭐⭐⭐⭐
🌻 Character Development:⭐⭐
🌻 Romance:⭐⭐⭐
🌻 Pacing:⭐⭐⭐⭐
🌻 Ending:⭐⭐⭐⭐
🌻 Page Turner:⭐⭐⭐⭐
🌻 Book Cover:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
☁FINAL VERDICT: 3.90/5 ☁
I thoroughly enjoy Bianca Blythe’s books. Although somewhat short, she keeps you guessing about what will come next! In How to Train a Viscount, we quickly see Adam is a good hearted and kind man who works for a not so nice man. Adam delivers the letter to his employer, Randall, informing him he has recently become a Viscount due to the death of his elder brother. While Adam is out securing passage for Randall to return home, Randall is murdered with Adam then finding the body and seeing the murderer. Adam has to disappear, but only has on him the papers and ticket for Randall to return to England. Off he goes on the next ship.
Then, we get to re-meet adorable Lady Isla. Yes, she has been unkind of a previous book. Who would not be upset when your betrothed breaks a long standing engagement. But, let’s not dwell on that. Suffice it to say, she is a bit disappointed with her life and has decided never to marry. Her former friends and acquaintances seem to have turned their back on her. Even her brother seems to have left her behind.
Thank goodness, Adam comes into her life needing help. Eventually, she decides to take him up on teaching him how to be a viscount. This is the part that is so unbelievable it becomes believable. I love the connection and trust that develops between these two. Interestingly, it did not seem to enter Adam’s mind that the Viscounts of Tremont seem to be dropping like flies! He is just going to become the Viscount since no one seems to know the previous one, with Isla’s help. Odd that it does not seem to bother her at all. This kind of turns into a conspiracy of sorts.
The secondary characters in the form of a monkey, a dog and a really bad chaperon keep you just as entertained. Additionally, Ms. Blythe brings back love matches from previous books to help this couple along the way to their HEA.
I follow this series since its first release, I do love the witty banters and humour Mrs Bianca Blythe adds to her stories.
The premises were intriguing and I do loved the hero, Adam is a kind man, he is no peer and worked all his life doing what he has to survive like being the employee of a very despicable man, man who is murdered and forces him to flee the culprit impersonating his new titled late employer.
But to appear as a Viscount he must learn how to be a Viscount, why he requires Isla’s services.
Even a wealthy man, he stayed true to himself and tried to improve the life of those under his care, a hero from my heart.
No alpha rogue but a kind man full of empathy.
I confess I disliked her in the previous books, she was rather cold, haughty and arrogant.
Here she appears as a changed woman, aware of her faults and flaws.
Warning, spoiler ahead:
Then it is funny how a tiny detail can kill the mood.
I have no problem with my heroines not being virgin, if was required by men laws during these times, but here, having a young lady becoming a Mata Hari or a kind of demirep to spy on her country behalf, it was quite disturbing for me, as if it was added to the storyline just like that. Plus during her period of service she was betrothed, not a love match but he was her childhood friend, so it was like cheating for me.
Rather inconceivable how a earl’s daughter and sister could have acted this way while her friend, brother and fiancé were fighting the French army. Spying in some way, it is already difficult to comprehend as she was a debutante but playing a courtesan in full, it is hard to digest.
Plus it added nothing to the story, just a kind of explanation about why she felt free to seduce Adam. She has decided to remain unwed, a spinster, so she had no need to justify why she wanted him.
End of spoiler
The story was still very entertaining and enjoyable, but the shift in character of Isla was a bit abrupt, and rather odd for the cold and calculating lady she was previously. She redeemed herself but she is still far from my favorite character in this series.
Hopefully the quips and repartee helped smooth the storyline.
My copy was provided by Netgalley and its publisher Victory Editing NetGalley Co-Op.