Intriguing topic forms the core of THE ENTICING OF MISS STANDISH by Julia Justiss. In this story Julia Justiss reminds us of society just over one hundred years or so ago. In England the class structure was alive and well. A lady of twenty three was considered over the hill. And elitism was central to life and liberty. In creating Miss Standish Julia Justiss reminds us of females who were willing to go against the grain. Sara Standish is nothing like any woman Cameron Fitzallen has ever met. Sure he has known beautiful woman and enjoyed his time with them. But coming from being an orphaned baby Cameron knows his stature in the society. He is well regarded in his industry as a man who can engineer machines in cotton mills. He is a supporter of evolving regulations designed to protect young children working in mills like his.
No matter how much success Cameron reaches in the world of business his birthright mandates much of his future. So for the most part Cameron has never considered marriage. He barely makes time to eat. But there is something about Sara that makes him wish things could be different. Different time, society, morays.
Cameron finds himself confiding things about his life and circumstance to this lovely, smart, strong woman. And keeps putting himself right in Sara’s path when he should be looking for excuses to avoid her at all cost.
Avoiding Sara is more challenging than anything Cameron has had to face in a very long time. Such a shame to think that two wonderful, caring and generous people are prevented from following their hearts and attraction. Cameron has less to lose than Sara. He has no family connections. But Sara does.
Sara has no intention of getting married. The gents that move in her circle absolutely hold no interest. And those that do pay attention to her are only doing so to find an appropriate wife to run their household. Absolutely not the future Sara sees for herself.
Julia Justiss has her hands full with the pull and tug of these two terrific characters. Not sure who needs the other more but Sara and Cameron together would make a wonderful couple. Some things are just not meant to be. So the question is whether you settle for what you can have or do you take a huge chance in the name of love.
I’m a sucker for these old time romance novels where norms are just so archaic. But I love learning old traditions and customs even if they reek of inequality. You can’t redo history. You can learn from it and why not just sit back and enjoy. This is Julia Justiss world and nobody does it better.

Can Sara Standish, like her two friends, make a happy marriage? Since this is a Regency romance in a series titled The Cinderella Spinsters, optimism is not misplaced. Equally predictable, however, are the challenges. More interested in helping the less fortunate than in the social distractions of the idle aristocracy, Sara persuades her family to let her assist Lady Trent when she hosts, at her estate in Derbyshire, a Parliamentary committee inspecting working conditions in factories. There she meets Cameron Fitzallen, a millowner with very progressive ideas about improving not only the efficiency of machines, but the welfare of his workers, especially the children. They feel an instant attraction, but she is a lady, he a workhouse orphan, and the class barriers in the early 19th century are rigid.

The author provides fascinating detail about factory conditions during this era, and the impact upon society of machinery and inventions like the railway. The efforts of reformists to improve conditions for workers are met with resistance from those concerned solely with profit or who view the lower classes with disdain. Against this background, the lovers’ indecision, though it slows the pace, is understandable, and Sara’s defiance of convention heroic.

Strongly recommended.
HNR Issue 94 (November 2020)
https://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/the-enticing-of-miss-standish-the-cinderella-spinsters-3/

On paper, The Enticing of Miss Standish by Julia Justiss has everything I want in a historical romance: an independent, forthright heroine, a self-made, non-titled hero, class conflict, a slow burn romance, set in the early Victorian era when the Industrial Revolution was becoming A Very Big Deal. This is all stuff I love - so why then didn't I love this book? Let me explain....

This is the third book in the author's Cinderella Spinsters series but stands alone well. With her two best friends now married, Sara Standish's hope that they'd all get a house together, live independently, to work on their various interests and projects is somewhat dashed. Oh sure, she's happy for her friends - she just needs to convince her demanding aunt and "invalid" mother that traipsing her around London trying to land her a husband is futile. Sara just isn't that interested nor does she (or any eligible gentleman it seems) find herself all that interesting. What she wants to do is continue her political activism work on behalf of child mill workers. So when an opportunity to serve as a companion to Lady Trent as her committee tours mills out in the country, Sara calls up all her powers of persuasion and gets her aunt to agree.

Cameron Fitzallen was an indigent orphan who worked in the mills as a child, but his curiosity and intelligence were recognized by the owner who sent him to school. Cameron is mechanical gifted, having several patents to his name and is now taking over ownership and operation of the mill. Naturally, having been a mill child himself, his mill far exceeds the reforms set in place by the Factory Act - which means it's an early stop for Lady Trent's committee. Cam has strong feelings about gentry do-gooders and immediately butts heads with Sara - who finds him attractive, albeit insufferable. Cam soon realizes he's been an ass, so when an opportunity presents itself to smooth things over with Sara, he does.

That's basically it. The conflict revolves entirely around class - Sara being gentry and Cameron most assuredly not. There's a pompous earl's son who sneers and Lady Trent who very bluntly tells Sara that yes, the man is charming and intelligent but it just won't work and naturally Sara and Cam can't stay away from each other. It's always there, and a problem, but it's not a real driving force in the story until the very end. So that leaves a couple hundred pages to fill up with other stuff - which is Sara visiting the mill schools, musing on her attraction to Cam and knowing it's no good but oh she's can't help it, Cam having those same musings about Sara, running his mill, and his own passions for improving mill machinery and making life better for his workforce. Oh, and there's a train ride to Birmingham.

It's all very boring. The conflict lacks punch, and the characters, while admirable and interesting, exhibit more passion for their, uh, passions than they do for each other. There's some decent tension, but it's inconsistent. When I finally think we're going to get some oomph to the conflict and a suitably climactic finish? It's like a balloon slowly being deflated. The author sets up a dynamite finish, where Sara could declare her independence, confront her aunt and mother, and ride off into the sunset to live the life SHE wants to and claim Cam. Instead? There's no confrontation with auntie or mama and the sweeping declarations of love between our romantic couple are rather muted.

The parts just don't add up to a whole - which is a shame because this is a historical with some actual history in it, Sara and Cam are both admirable interesting characters, and for a change of pace issues of class aren't swept under the rug - well, until they actually are. Because while it's a given that Sara's BFFs will stand by her side as she marries ::shudder:: an entrepreneur, the fact that auntie has a miraculous change of heart was a bit too much for me to swallow.

Your mileage may vary, but sadly this one never elevated itself above "OK" for me.

Final Grade = C

I really enjoyed this book. I found it well done.
It is a quick and easy read that I was able to read in one afternoon.

He's fighting for change from the inside, she's fighting for change from the outside.

Cameron Fitzallen is an engineer, the face of Hughes Works and is trying to change the factory conditions for children. From the inside. I found I really related to Cameron and his journey. He's well fleshed out and yes, he's physically reactive to Sara.

Sara is 23, firmly on the shelf by choice and after five ambivalent seasons, is happy to work with Lady Trent on reform from the outside for children in factories.

This books successfully straddles politics, reform, ideologies and attitudes and of course an extra helping of steam and attraction. Cameron comes alive more so than Sara, and I do recommend this book.

A fairly nice later Victorian romance. Sara Standish is a dedicated spinster and is actively involved in improving conditions for mill workers. Cameron Fitzallen is a self-made man and newly named mill owner. They are immediately attracted to each other and discover they have similar goals and values. The only problem is that Sara is from the aristocracy and Cameron was a destitute orphan.

There was excellent information about mills and mill workers of the time period. Both characters were likable. My major complaint was that there was a lot of ruminating and should-I-could-I from both characters' point of view. This is a classic case of "too much talk and not enough action." It really bogged down the flow of the story.

ARC provided through Netgalley.

The romance felt like more of a backdrop to the plight of children workers during the Industrial Revolution rather than the other way around.

Julia Justiss’ Cinderella Spinsters series comes to a close with The Enticing of Miss Standish, which takes place against the backdrop of the cotton mills and the societal changes being wrought by the industrial revolution.  It’s a well-researched story packed with information about the manufacturing industries operating in the middle of the nineteenth century, and it takes an insightful look at the unfairness of the class system and displays an understanding of the magnitude of the task facing those wishing to improve the lives of the ordinary people – and especially the children – who worked in the factories and mills that were powering the nation’s prosperity.  It’s easy to see that Ms. Justiss has done comprehensive research in order to incorporate these elements seamlessly into her story – but on the downside, they tend to overshadow the romance which, while lovely, isn’t as prominent as I’d have liked.

Of the three Cinderella Spinsters, only one remains unwed.  The well-bred, pretty-behaved, but rather dull and ordinary  Miss Sara Standish, is being constantly urged by her well-meaning mother and aunt to find a suitable husband and settle down into marriage, but a life comprising afternoon calls, shopping trips, routs and soirées, meeting the same people over and over again, has never been the life she’d envisaged for herself.  She and her friends Emma and Olivia (heroines of the two previous books) had planned to set up house together and pursue their political activities; members of Lady Lyndlington’s Ladies’ Committee and devoted to the cause of social and political reform, they intended to spend their time working to promote change and improve the lot of country’s inhabitants.  But now Emma and Olivia are wed and blissfully happy, Sara’s dreams of independent living must be shelved – although she is still determined to continue her work for the various causes she supports, the closest to her heart of which is children’s welfare and education.  When the book opens, Sara’s mother and aunt are not at all pleased to learn of Sara’s plan to act as a kind of assistant to the Marchioness of Trent, a fellow member of the Ladies’ Committee, and to accompany her to her Derbyshire estate, where Lady Trent will host members of the Parliamentary Committee appointed to oversee factory inspections in the wake of the recently passed Factory Act.

Sara’s relatives can hardly object to her association with a marchioness, and a couple of weeks later finds her accompanying Lady Trent and members of the committee on a visit to Hughes Cotton Works.  It’s here that she first meets the mill’s manager, Cameron Fitzallen, but they don’t get off to the best of starts.

Many AAR regulars will be pleased to learn that Cameron – Cam -  is that rare breed of hero we’d love to see more often in the pages of historical romance: one without a title. He’s an orphan who was put to work in the mills and whose keen mind and interest in machinery were spotted by the owner, Mr. Hughes, who took Cam under his wing, paid for his education and brought him up to eventually take over the business.  Cam is now the manager and part-owner of the Hughes Cotton Works, and is not particularly well-disposed towards those ladies of the gentry who amused themselves by dabbling in ‘Good Causes’. He makes no secret of this when he suggests that Sara and her committee will have forgotten all about the children at the Hughes works within a month and moved onto some other Enthusiasm of the Moment.

After the group’s departure, however, he realises that he behaved badly, and is glad when an invitation to a dinner party for local mill owners at Lady Trent’s house affords him the opportunity to apologise to Miss Standish for his boorish behaviour.   After this, a tentative friendship develops between them, one that is underpinned by a strong current of attraction that takes them  both by surprise.  This is very much a slow-burn romance; Sara and Cam are well aware that their difference in station renders anything more than friendship impossible (and even a friendship is frowned upon), and the author does a great job here of developing their relationship; they admit to their mutual attraction and agree that nothing can come of it, but the undercurrent of desire and longing grows stronger the more they try to rationalise it away.

Sara and Cam are strong, engaging characters who are passionate about their work – he about developing techniques and machinery that will make the work safer and providing decent conditions for his staff; she about the welfare and education of the children at Hughes’ and the surrounding factories.  Despite their difference in station, they’re both lonely people - Cam is an orphan, Sara grew up in luxury with parents who were too self-absorbed to take much notice of her – but they bond over a love of books and reading, and a shared desire to do what they can to make the world a better place.

Ultimately, however, this is one of those times where the individual parts of the book don’t quite add up to a satisfying whole.  The characters are likeable – admirable, even – and the background is full of fascinating detail, but there were times it seemed that Cam and Sara’s passion for their work and causes was stronger than their passion for each other, and that isn’t ideal in a romance novel.

With that said, I’m still giving The Enticing of Miss Standish a recommendation because it has a lot going for it, and I’m sure it will appeal to those of us who appreciate some actual history in our historical romance and for whom a non-aristocratic hero is always a draw.

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I just couldn't get into this story. It was a shame because they author did have a very strong writing style and a unique perspective on the time period in which this story was set, however I just felt that it was too slow moving for my tastes. When I'm in the mood for a romance story I was that to be the focus of the story with other details woven in to move that romance along, but with this one I felt like the descriptions of the mills, and the children workers, and the whole industrial revolution period over shadowed everything else. It felt more like a telling of the time period with the romance as a by-product of what was going on around them.

All things considered, I'm sure that I will be in the minority with my thoughts, and there are more people who will love this story. I would read more from this author.

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.

This is a cute story, a nice conclusion to the trilogy (which you definitely don’t need to have read first). But I feel like it was lacking something. There was plenty of substance to the story - the heroine is deeply involved in the education of children employed in mills, and the hero is a very progressive thinking mill owner - but I think it was the H and h themselves who failed to hold my interest. But if you like a story where the leads come from different classes and long for each other silently, then give this one a read!

I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. All opinions are my own.