All Cassandra Hale has ever known is the orphanage where she grew up. She receives a mysterious letter that leads her to Briarton Park. There she is caught between two worlds, one of the gentry and the other of the villagers. She catches the interest of two men and gets caught up in a mystery. I loved the setting and the plot was very interesting. Ms. Ladd does an excellent job telling of life in Regency England. She tells lovely faith-filled stories that compel you to read long after bedtime.

So brew your favorite tea, shut off your phone (unless that is where you read) and curl up for a relaxing afternoon.

I was given a copy of this book by NetGalley with no expectations. All thoughts are my own

What a delightful book!!! This story was so captivating, I couldn’t read fast enough. I always love a story that starts of with a hint of mystery.
Or in this case a mysterious letter.

With nothing and no one left, Cassandra’s only hope is with that letter. It sends her on a search for family and love, and a place to belong.
Although the story may start with a slightly sad note, it has so much more to it than that. There is a depth to Cassandra’s story I hadn’t expected. She is such a strong, brave and determined woman. It’s inspiring! And the relationships she forms along the way are wonderful! I loved her encounters with James. He is no stranger to difficulties in life, and like Cassandra, he tries to be strong and brave despite them.
And after they meet, we’ll the story get really good. Because I am almost always here for the romance! And one of my favourite tropes, falling for your boss, regency style. It’s good any style really.
And then there is the mystery! Wow, I was thrilled with this part of the story. I wasn’t expecting it at all, and it added this element to the story that just blew me away.
It was exceptionally well done and you need to read it!

Thank you NetGalley and Thomas Nelson for the complimentary electronic copy of this book. All opinions expressed are my own.

Content: clean
Romance: kissing
Violence: mild
Language: none

A deathbed confession can change everything. Cassandra Hale, who grew up in a girls school and now teaches there, has never known her family. She's shocked when the headmistress confesses in her final hours that she's hid important information from Cassandra. There's only one letter to offer Cassandra that will unlock the key to her past . . . and her future.

Taking the letter from Briarton Park, which contains promises but little more, Cassandra travels to the place so far from the only home she's ever known. But Mr. Clark, who wrote the letter, has been dead more than two years, and no one at Briarton has any idea what he meant by the cryptic comments within the letter.

Mr. North, the local vicar, tries to help Cassandra with her search. She makes friends with young woman staying at the same boardinghouse. And time and again she keeps running into the Warrington family, the current owners of Briarton Park.

Cassandra is a sweet, good-hearted heroine who only wants to know if she has family somewhere in the world. When she finds out the answer may hold an unexpected inheritance, she cares nothing about that, only wanting to know the people she's related to. But when it becomes clear that someone is out to stop her from receiving the inheritance, Cassandra must look around and see who she can truly trust.

I really enjoyed this story. It was engaging from the opening pages, and I liked both the hero and heroine. I thought the plot was well-crafted and unique. I will say I missed a faith aspect to the story, and the ending also seemed rushed. But overall, I would definitely recommend this book for anyone looking for a Regency romance with a light thread of mystery.

I received my copy of the book from the publisher. All thoughts in this review are my own.

This was a really good read! The mystery surrounding Cassanda's parentage was one that caught my attention and held it throughout the story. I really liked the character of Rachel and I hope she gets her own story. Looking forward to more in this series.

Page by page, the characters drew me in and would not let me go.
Many thanks to Thomas Nelson Fiction and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I enjoyed this book by Sarah Ladd. I liked that it had a mystery and a little bit of romance. I thought the story was engaging and I could connect with the characters. I liked that the story was about discovering what family really is and how you fit in. I thought this was a good, wholesome read.

I received a complimentary book from publishers, publicists, and or authors. A review was not required and all opinions and ideas expressed are my own.

I will be reviewing on my other Netgalley acccount. The publisher are not approving requests on that one, but on this one despite the lower feedback rating, with no explanation given.

The Letter from Briarton Park
By Sarah E Ladd

#TheLetterfromBriartonPark #NetGalley

In Regency England, one letter will alter a young woman’s fate when it summons her to Briarton Park—an ancient place that holds the secrets of her past and the keys to her future.

Cassandra Hale grew up knowing little about her parentage, and she had made peace with the fact that she never would. But Cassandra’s world shifts when a shocking deathbed confession reveals a two-year-old letter from Mr. Clark, the master of Briarton Park, with hints to her family’s identity. Stung by betrayal, she travels to the village of Anston only to learn Mr. Clark has since passed away.

James Warrington is a widower and the new master of Briarton Park, where he lives with his two young daughters, his sister, and his mother-in-law. When Cassandra appears at his doorstep with a letter from the previous owner and then proceeds to assist his family in an unexpected way, he is honor bound to help uncover the answers she seeks.

The more time Cassandra spends in Anston, the more she begins to suspect not everything—or everyone—is as they seem. As details emerge, the danger surrounding her intensifies. Using wit and intuition, she must navigate the treacherous landscapes between truth and rumor and between loyalty and deception if she is to uncover the realities of her past and find the place her heart can finally call home.

Sarah Ladd’s latest Regency romance, first in the new Houses of Yorkshire series, combines mystery and intrigue with the best of historical storytelling.

Praise for The Letter from Briarton Park:

“The swoon-worthy romance of Jane Austen meets the suspense of Charlotte Bronte in Sarah Ladd's enthralling The Letter from Briarton Park. As Cassandra navigates the mystery of her own life, it is absolutely clear that family—either of blood or heart—are where she, and we, ultimately find our home.” —Joy Callaway, international bestselling author of The Fifth Avenue Artists Society and The Greenbrier Resort

Sweet Regency romance with mystery elementsThe first book in the Houses of Yorkshire series, but can be read in any orderBook length: approximately 91,000 wordsIncludes discussion questions for book clubs

The first in author Sarah Ladd’s Houses of Yorkshire series, I am eagerly looking forward to book two.

Ladd’s story is full of mystery and intrigue. Who can you trust? I thought I knew, and then it changed. I honestly didn’t figure it out until close to the end. And it has a great ending!

A Jane Austin feel, the setting was perfect and Ladd’s attention to details of the day was spot on, which I always expect in her books. Strong, well developed characters will draw you into the story as they live an unexpected life. Some you’ll love immediately, others will take awhile for you to warm up to, and still others you’ll never like.

If you enjoy a gothic trope then I highly recommend The Letter From Briarton Park.

I received a complimentary copy of this book but was not required to leave a review.

Sarah always does a great job of telling a historical fiction and I love it. Not only did she have the tension of family, both known and unknown. The love story between the two was cute and developed over time. I also appreciated that Cassandra was not obsessed with just marrying someone for security she wanted to be able to provide for herself as well.

The Letter from Briarton Park by Sarah E. Ladd

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
____________________________________________________________________________________
Story Notes

This story had all the drama of a gothic story paired with a hint of mystery and a love story to make it a marvelous story to get lost in. I read this one in one day thanks to the rain and it's engaging plot and will certainly be recommending it. I loved that the story began with lots of threads that slowly got wound together to make a complicated tale that I both anticipated and loathed finishing. I wanted to know how things would turn out but didn't want to leave this story. Sarah created some characters that had both wit and depth and that shone out with the conversations. I did have a couple things that kept me from giving it five stars: the love story and the mill situation. First, the love story was sweet and pretty good but it seemed a little lacking. I've read almost all of Sarah's books and James might be my least favorite hero as far as romance goes. I loved how he cared for his home and his family, however so that redeemed him in my eyes. Second was the mill situation. There really wasn't a solution given on the page for that. I would have liked to have seen a bit more about what happened in that arena because it would have given us another side of James to see. Other that those two things, the story was really wonderful. I was most pleased with how it ended, especially the revelation of the villain. This is certainly a book you'll want to check out if "gothic" type regency romance is your thing.

I received this temporary complimentary E-book from Thomas Nelson Fiction via NetGalley. I am not required by anyone to write a positive review but am most pleased to do so. I will receive no fiscal compensation for this review and the opinions expressed herein are entirely my own.

This was a sweet novel that I finished reading about a week ago or so. I didn't have too many expectations going in and at first, I was honestly wondering why I had requested it -- I have this stupid idea that I'm somehow 'over' this type of novels due to my age.

But this one was a nice surprise after all. I liked the warm tone of voice of the author, I very much enjoyed the female heroine, and also how she interacted with the people around her.

I found her story to be relatively sad, but I will admit that every now and then, I would be a little annoyed by the fact that she put so much accent on her breeding and family and how unlucky she was because she didn't know her parents up to a point in her life.

The sweet love story that blooms in this book was super enjoyable! The male character is pretty much everything you might ever want in a man. He is dependable, loyal, trustworthy, and he cares for his family, and overall he's just a good guy that wants to help Cassandra as much as possible.

There was another male character that I didn't like at all, which made me think that the author did an excellent job of making him detestable, especially after the second half of the book.

What I liked about it
The story in itself was interesting and I liked that the pace wasn't slow at all. There were things happening in every chapter, whether because we got to meet new characters (or some that we had heard about but whose actions we didn't previously know).

I'd say that this book is very easy to read, but the pace and the background might make it time-consuming, to some extent.

I think I read it in a bit over a week, which might be a lot for me, at least since the beginning of the year.

Perhaps the thing that I liked the most was Cassandra's character. She was a really down-to-earth woman that didn't want to focus on her emotions or frivolous things that might have interested other females of her time -- such as making an advantageous marriage as soon as possible.


The overall decency of most of the characters in this book was surprising to me. I thought that Cassandra's friend would have some ulterior motive for befriending her, but that was not true in the end.

Furthermore, I truly enjoyed the description of the views on life and society that most people had in those times -- especially since many were prejudiced against individuals that weren't in the same class as they themselves were.

I realize this is perhaps a dated topic, but I think that reading historical novels, even historical romance, can help us better understand how people thought at a specific time. So, I think that The Letter from Briarton Park is a winner in this respect.

And finally, what I really liked about this book was the lack of 'steam'. In the past years, I've realized that authors that focus on the intense and often times insane and instantaneous chemistry between two characters somewhat can't focus on the rest of the story, so that was not an issue I had to handle with this one.

What I didn't like about it
I think I would have liked a faster pace, although it was moderate.

This book left me a little frustrated at times even though the conflicts I read about resolved in the end. But the prejudice that some of the characters had against others was very challenging for me to handle -- although I understand that that's how things were back then.

All in all, I think that this is a sweet and clean historical romance (although I wouldn't consider it 'romance' in the traditional sense of the word) that would make the perfect read for teenage girls, for example.

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas Nelson for giving me an e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Ladd’s latest book keeps you interested right up to the end. You will love the characters, well most of them. It must be terrible not to know who you are and where you came from and do you have family anywhere? This is Casandra Hale. She receives a mysterious letter from the owner of Briarton Park, delayed by two years, because the letter was kept from her — she believes she will soon learn the truth about her past, including the identities of her parents. So she leaves the only home she has ever had and journeys to Briarton Park and loses all hope when she learns that the man who penned the letter is dead. A new owner and his family is installed in the manor and he cannot help her with her questions. What is she to do and who can help her find the answers? Briarton Park is full of secret passageways and hidden rooms. Why are they there and what were they used for? The mystery and suspense will keep you turning the pages. An interesting book with a satisfying ending……. Thomas Nelson provided this complimentary copy through NetGalley for my honest, unbiased review.

Secrets can mask any things!

Set in Regency England as industrialisation is overtaking the landscape.
A young school teacher, Cassandra Hale, is given information about her past and handed a letter by “the woman who’d been like a mother to her”, her mentor and headmistress, Mrs Jane Denton, as she was dying. A deathbed confession if you will. Cassandra’s love for her mentor vies with a sense of betrayal. The letter is an invitation to Briarton Park in North Yorkshire from one Robert Clark where she will be given more information about her family.
Cassandra had been placed in care at the Denton School for Young Ladies at the age of five. Now nineteen years later she sets out to Briarton Park, to find out more about her unknown past. That search leads her to Anston Village during the troubled times when the instalment of machinery in mills threatens workers employment. Before her quest is finally put to rest, Cassandra’s search will bring not only knowledge of who her parents were, but betrayal and death, and eventually to lead to friendship and love, and a place of belonging. Along the way two men catch her attention, or let’s just say Cassandra catches theirs. The obliging vicar Mr North and mill owner James Warrington.
A pleasing and enjoyable Regency romance with an hint of gothic overtones.

A Thomas Nelson ARC via NetGalley
Please note: Quotes taken from an advanced reading copy maybe subject to change
(Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.)

This was my first book by this author and it was a really cute read! I really liked the mystery and suspense that was woven throughout the story. I also enjoyed seeing the relationship develop between Cassandra and James.

A very well written Regency mystery/romance. Good plot and character dynamics. Not my favorite historical time period but I definitely enjoyed this book. My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my advance ebook. This is my unbiased review.

I am yanked completely out of the story when the author uses the same word in proximity to itself. Here it was done even in the same sentence. The plot was okay - a little loose. A little slow moving. I wasn’t a fan of the blatant bad guys. This book was - stem to stern - overly simplistic in writing style, characters and story.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to offer my unbiased opinion.

What happens when you discover your real father was very wealthy and has left you an estate? Then what happens when the man who is living there is devishly handsome and you find yourself in danger? This historical mystery was such a breath of fresh air for my reading list. For fans of Victorian mysteries with a dollop of romance: this on is for you. Definately recommended.

My thanks to NetGalley, libro.fm and Thomas Nelson for an eARC and audio ARC copy of this book to read and listen to and review.

During Lent I try to read and listen to non-secular books and music. It's part of my giving up, taking on for the Lenten season. Thomas Nelson is a well-known publisher of Christian books, so I requested this and thought it would be perfect for me for Lent.

Ok, for some reason, God was pretty absent in this book. There were PLENTY of opportunities for the MCs to pray, as there was plenty of drama and danger and sadness and joy, to pray for help and in thanksgiving.

Not ONCE did a character even THINK about praying, let alone actually DO it. And one of the characters was a VICAR!!!

I don't enjoy IN YOUR FACE religion, but I DO like it to be present in a book put out by a Christian publisher. This was more of a clean/proper romance with mystery/murder thrown in.

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER

The vicar was a Christian because he had to be due to his profession and he ended up being the worst of them all. Seriously??

Add on the cheesy romance, the TSTL MC h, the obvious way the plot was leading and how a major issue of the violence at the mills was glossed over by the end and you have a less than happy listener and reader here.

Recommended if you like clean/proper historical romance with a bit of mystery and suspense.

1, I am so disappointed with this book I can't even, stars.

Sarah E Ladd is not an inexperienced author; she’s got three trilogies under her belt, so it’s not surprising that I enjoyed reading The Letter from Briarton Park. It was romantic, suspenseful, and ended happily, which I always appreciate. I give it four out of five stars.

Cassandra Hale has just discovered a mysterious letter that references her past - she’s never known her parents, and has always wondered who they were. As the letter invites her to Briarton Park, she sets off on the five-day journey to the estate in search of her past. Upon her arrival; however, she finds that the author of the letter is dead and the estate has been purchased by Mr. Warrington and his family. Cassandra thinks him the perfect country gentleman, but expects she won’t see him much as she and the local vicar attempt to discover who she really is. However, Cassandra becomes closer to Mr. Warrington and his family once she takes a position as the household governess. As Cassandra’s past increasingly kicks up conflict, it becomes clear that there are few people she should trust in the village, and turns toward Mr. Warrington for support in her quest. As they start to trust one another, an attraction grows. Will they move beyond their respective roles as employer/employee?

Honestly, my synopsis of The Letter from Briarton Park doesn’t really do the book justice. There are a lot of threads interwoven in this novel, and several aspects of the plot that are really appealing. Ladd managed to fit a lot of events, information, and characters into an average-length book - no easy feat! She struck a good balance between necessary information and more fun aspects of the story.
I thought the romance was good, albeit pretty fast-moving, but I don’t think it was any faster than a typical romance novel. The connection between Warrington and Cassandra is also very clean, but the book is so full of other events that I’m not sure there would have been room for any dirty romance. I only slightly missed it because I was caught up in Cassandra’s search for her family and the problems that arose from it. I liked as well that Warrington’s children were included in the book, but not in an obnoxious way where Cassandra immediately charmed them. Other secondary characters in The Letter from Briarton Park were well-written and interesting. Not only were the characters important and relevant to Cassandra, but they also turned out to be important to the plot.
The plot was very well done; I was a bit surprised about halfway through when we discovered who Cassandra’s father was! I didn’t know how Ladd was going to fill the other half, and was pleased when she threw in a murder to solve. Cassandra’s attorney (really, her father’s estate’s attorney) has been killed on Briarton Park land. Pleased for the mystery, obviously, not that someone had died.
In summary, this book had the trifecta of romance, mystery, and excellent plot. The Letter from Briarton Park was engaging, amusing, and had a satisfying conclusion. I’d be willing to try other novels from Sarah E. Ladd in the future, if I ever want to read some standalone novels rather than a series. I’d give this novel a solid four out of five stars.