I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. I enjoyed this cute WWII insta love story. . I loved the queer rep, especially the friendships between our MC and several queer side characters, as well as the 1920's NYC setting. I can recommend this book if you are into 1920’s history and a sweet romance with some drama

I’m sad to say that I did not love this book or enjoyed it very much. The characters made me finish it since I loved reading about them and the relationships. But the plot was not very good and I was confused several times. It felt like parts of the book was missing. They suddenly went from happy to being broken up and I had no idea how it happened

Somewhere between a 2-2.5

It wasn't terrible, just not for me. Everything in this book was just very dramatic, from the insta-love and relationships to the conflicts, and it was at odds with the writing style, which was dull and detail oriented to the point of exhaustion.

Most of the story actually revolves around Harriet and Charlie's relationship where I would have liked more exploration of Harriet and Rosalie's relationship. I was expecting a historical romance, but it read more like historical fiction with a side of romance if that makes sense. Harriet's relationship with her family members is very sweet though and everybody was very supportive and loving.

Thank you to the publisher for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

'Of Trust and Heart': 3⭐

(Unpaid Review: thank you @netgalley, @charlotteanne and the publishers for allowing me to read this eArc copy in exchange for a review.)

Let's talk about the content first, to give you a fair warning in what to expect: homophobia, death, misogyny and sexual assault.
Now, we can dive into this story set in the 1920s, around the war and the atmosphere full of costumes, the friendship between the main characters and all the bling of living in that era, were something I really enjoyed reading about.

However, I much more liked the author's sapphic Titanic retelling than this one. I found this one a little bit blant and in need of more explanation and diving into the character's lives.

It's a good book if you need to let off some steam and just read a good book!

This book is full of ambiance with a love story as opposed to being a love story with ambiance. The author brought the "Bright Young Things" of the post WWI era to life. I picked up some Downton Abbey meets Harlem Renaissance vibes. Harriet, the daughter of an Earl, goes to a NYC speakeasy for a final fling before bowing to societal pressures and settling down. She meets the singer Rosalie Smith, who by the virtue of being poor, is able to live her life freely. (I wish Rosalie had a better last name than the common Smith.)

I liked both main characters and wanted them to have a HEA. Harriet's cousin, Charlie was a hoot and a great gay-guide and friend to her. Moreover, he has some great ideas.

The story progressed through some fits and starts and did get bogged down a little, but not enough to drive me crazy. I really liked the ending, although it seemed a bit rushed and I was greatful to have an epilogue.

If you are a flapper at heart, I think you will enjoy this book. I give it 3.5 stars.

I recieved a free copy from the author/publisher via Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I think this is case of expectations vs. reality; this book is marketed as a Romance, but it doesn't have the typical markers of a Romance and instead reads more like Historical Fiction with strong romantic themes. I was hoping for more tension, more pining, and frankly more shared page time between our love interests, Harriet and Rosalie, than they actually get in the first half of the book. I loved the queer rep, especially the friendships between our MC and several queer side characters, as well as the 1920's NYC setting, but unfortunately the love story was underplayed and a bit too insta-lovey for my liking.

If you're in the mood for a queer Historical story you might enjoy this, but if you're looking for a Romance like I was this might not be the book for you.

Thank you to Entangled Publishing, LLC via Netgalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

What a fun read! Hamilton is now two-for-two on sapphic historical fiction that I really enjoyed reading. Set in the 1920's in prohibition-era New York City. Rich girl/poor girl. Generally supportive family.

Lady Harriet Cunningham is a Scottish noble-woman in her early 20s sent to the US to stay with family and find a husband. While at an underground queer club with her gay (maybe pan) cousin, Harriet meets and falls for performer Rosalie Smith. Against all the odds, can they have their HEA??

I liked the bones of this story. LGBTQ+ rep, family obligation drama, 1920's setting, but I thought the execution was meh. I was hoping for a Roaring 20's Sapphic romp, but I found the story kind of dull. I think there is too much telling and not enough showing. I think the book needed to be longer so we could really get invested in the characters and their struggles. I would have liked to see more dichotomy between Harriet's day and night lives. See her more torn between what her family wants and what she wants.

I know the ending has people up in arms, but that didn't really bother me. I didn't care for it, but mostly because it seemed annoyingly convenient. I would have preferred a more "fantasy" ending that is out of character for the times.

Of Trust & Heart is the second book by Charlotte Anne Hamilton that I have read and whilst I did enjoy it, I felt it was nowhere near as good as 'Beneath the Waves' and was just about average.

I felt that very little happened, there was little going on except for the romance, and as such it often dragged in places and felt a little boring and the primary romance wasn't anything special. Both Harriet and Rosalie were sweet but I didn't feel that there was any great spark there and just about bought their connection.

There were some interesting side characters though; specifically, Charlie- Harriet's cousin and they made scenes interesting and the prohibition backdrop of New York City was interesting and wonderfully described. The writing was well done and the concept was lovely. Just overall I felt like a whole lot of nothing happened and the pace was incredibly slow. It was a sweet read though and we always need more sweet, soft, sapphic books.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

An ARC of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to like it more because the premise seemed really good. But the story felt rushed although they do have cute moments. It just went from zero to 100 pretty quickly. But one cannot be opposed to happy endings so that's why I had to give it 3 stars instead of 2.

This is probably closer 2.5 stars, but I’m rounding up for the sweet gays. I really wanted to like this, but OF TRUST AND HEART ultimately didn’t wow me. This novel is a sapphic historical fiction set in 1920s prohibition era NYC.

WHAT I LIKED:
-The inclusion of queer side characters. In addition to our lesbian narrator, Harriet, and her love interest, the cast included the mc’s pansexual male cousin, aro/ace rep, and other queer side characters.
-Despite the queer characters not being accepted by society, Harriet’s family knew about her sexuality and accepted her. This is rare for historical fiction - we need more queer books like this that do not solely center on homophobia.
-A decent spicy scene that was probably be most well-written chapter in the book

WHAT I DIDN’T LOVE:
-The characters were pretty flat. I didn’t hate them, but they didn’t feel like real, three-dimensional people to me.
-The writing was extremely elementary. I enjoyed the idea behind the book and the overall set-up, but it was simply not executed as well as it could have been.
-I wanted to see more chemistry from Harriet and her love interest, Rosalie.

I wouldn’t advise against anyone picking up OF HEART AND TRUST if they are in the mood for a light queer historical fiction read. I wish the writing and characters were stronger, but seeing queer joy in historical fiction made this worth the read for me.

I liked the story and the romance somewhat but I had a little trouble understanding why certain parts and events were rushed through and then other parts were long drawn out and very slow.

I thought this book sounded so interesting and this is actually my first sapphic romance. I have read a lot of m/m romances but never an f/f romance. But somehow I just didn’t feel the pull between the women sadly.
So instead I started reading it for the history surrounding prohibition, speakeasies, the LGBTQIA+ community and the black community in New York and Scotland in the 1920’s. An suddenly it became a lot more interesting to me.

I thought the romance between the Scottish Lady Harriet and the poor American performer Rosalie was very sweet but I didn’t feel any passion between them. Actually I felt more passion between Lady Harriet’s cousin Charlie and his romantic interest Jeffrey (the black gay saxophonist).
And I felt a lot more for Charlie and his struggles with his father than Harriet’s struggles with having to find a husband even though she is into women.
I guessed the conclusion very early on and I actually felt sorry for Henry her fiancé because she could have been his salvation too.

I can recommend this book if you are into 1920’s history and a sweet romance with some drama.

Of Trust and Heart by Charlotte Anne Hamilton

In 1923 many were licking the wounds of war and feeling the losses of family members who died in the Great War. Lady Harriet Cunningham has gone to stay with her aunt’s family in New York with the intention of finding a husband although men are what she is drawn to. Her cousin, Charlie, is a good friend and takes her to a speakeasy for her last hoorah before she settles down.

What I liked:
* The era, costumes, and thinking about what it must have been like to live then…
* The friendship between Harriet and Charlie
* The friendship between Harriet and her lady’s maid, Martha
* Harriet’s acceptance of her lack of interest in men, although they also wanted her safe so thought she should marry
* Harriet’s aunt who made a huge decision by marrying the man she did
* Henry: a worthy suitor but with issues of his own to deal with
* Thinking about the difficulties of the era: prohibition and other laws governing that period of time
* That it was more focused on the emotional aspects of the relationship(s) than the physical ones although I do love a steamy story
* The way the cousins eventually found a way to be happy

What I didn’t like:
* Thinking about how difficult it would be in the past to live openly with the person you loved if that person was not heterosexual or of the same color.
* Would have liked a glimpse into what the lives of the two couples were like in the future…maybe a scene with all of them together discussing something during a holiday.

Did I enjoy this book? Yes
Would I read more by this author? I think so

Thank you to NetGalley and Entangled Publishing for the ARC – This is my honest review.

3-4 Stars

I really hate to rate this book so low. I enjoyed my time reading The Breath Between Waves and thought reading this one would be a similar experience. I was thrilled with the premise: a 1920’s speakeasy sapphic romance sounded so exciting! And then there’s that beautiful, flashy cover that’s such a vibe. Sadly, nothing about this story grabbed me, at least not until the last 10% when things finally started to get interesting.

I found Harriet underdeveloped as a main character — I can’t name a personality trait of hers except maybe…nice? And where to begin with Rosalie, the love interest? Rosalie’s character had so much potential and from the little I could glean about her, I liked her so much! But unfortunately, she’s nothing more than a plot device used for Harriet to come to conclusions about her own life. We learn close to nothing about her. Parts of Rosalie’s backstory are alluded to once or twice but are never explored, which makes me sad. Also, the romance is extreme insta-love — after two brief interactions, we’re supposed to believe they’re in love, which doesn’t make sense to me.

I honestly think it’s misleading to market this book as a romance. It’s more of a tale of two queer cousins dealing with society’s expectations of them. Charlie, Harriet’s cousin, is much more fleshed out than Rosalie is: so much of the story is focused on Harriet trying to figure out Charlie’s problems, while potentially cute Harriet/Rosalie scenes are glossed over and only mentioned in passing. Romance-building scenes that could have lessened my distaste for the insta-love (for example, Harriet and Rosalie going on picnics, showing each other around, and just spending time together) are relegated to event-recounting, which is a shame.

Now for the reason Harriet is NYC in the first place: to find a husband. Harriet keeps acting like it’s dire to snag husband, but her ENTIRE family back in Scotland is accepting of her identity as (what we would nowadays call) a lesbian. She keeps thinking that she must marry immediately or else bring shame to her family’s name. I guess this somewhat makes sense because her family is so high-profile, and because they’re encouraging her to marry for security, but still It still seemed like a forced point of conflict. Also, so much of the story is dedicated to Harriet’s husband-searching journey. A scene or two of this is fine to build character, but after a while these scenes noticeably eat into the romance aspect of the story (a.k.a. what I came here for). We get so many scenes with Harriet and her suitors, while scenes with Rosalie are just glossed over?? At some point these suitor scenes needed to be glossed over instead, even though I did like Henry, one of the suitors.

I think I’m the only reviewer who was entirely disenchanted with the story UNTIL the ending, instead of the other way around. I found the last 10% to be the most interesting section, in which the characters come up with a clever solution that’s beneficial to them all. While I can understand why other readers would be unhappy with this turn of events, I liked it because it’s a big “in your face” to society. They find a loophole they can work with in order to become free of the stresses they shouldn’t have had in the first place. Plus, what can I say…I needed a bit of juicy drama to ignite my interest!

There are a few other things I liked about this book. I loved the queer supporting characters, including Charlie’s LI/Rosalie’s best friend Jeffrey, a Black queer saxophonist, and Harriet’s friend and maid Martha, who is also sapphic! I also liked the overarching themes of queer joy and resilience and the acknowledgment of nonbinary people. Overall, I’m really sad that I didn’t like this book much, but I’ll still be reading Hamilton’s works in the future because I know she can write books I’ll enjoy. In the future, I’d love to read a book about Martha finding her happily ever after!

content warnings: alcohol, death of a parent, graphic sex, guilt, incest(?), misogyny, mentions of anti-Black racism

I received an ARC from Entangled Publishing via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Parts of this were a solid 3 stars, but after that ending, I really can't give it more than 2. I just...what on earth was that? Why would you go for fake incest when the obvious solution of Charlie marries Rosalie is right there? On the bright side, it was nice to see so much queer acceptance in a historical romance.

CW: off-page family member death, period-typical homophobia (largely in the background), incest

Thank you for providing an ARC copy for this book. I was delighted to read it and provide my feedback.

While I was so excited to pick this up — I love absolutely anything historical! — I ran into a few problems towards the one-third mark. There wasn't much happening, no truly high-stakes that gripped me. There was a downward drift in the narrative that left me a little bored towards the middle and the chapters in which letters are shared between the love interest and the main character were a little lengthy. While this book was fabulously written with very descriptive scenes and settings, it suffered more from lack of events than anything else.

I liked Harriet's character just fine, but I feel like the main cast stole the show, what little of it there was. Charlie's character was easily imaginable; I could hear his voice very well. Both Jeffrey and Rosalie were a treat and Henry's character made me smile more than once. I wanted so much to root for these characters, but there just didn't seem to be enough to cheer them on against.

The author's writing style was very enjoyable, however. Her prose is lovely and poetic at times and I found that I truly loved how she described her characters' physical traits. I was able to envision her scenes easily and could hear their voices.

The ending came as a bit of a surprise, and I'm still going through how I feel about it, but I did think it an interesting way to solve the main characters' problems. Overall, I wish they just had... more problems.

This book just didn't work for me. One reason was that I couldn't really buy the romance: Harriet goes to a speakeasy gay bar and hears Rosalie singing. They exchange a few sentences and the next time they go there Rosalie has already written an entire song about her and after that Harriet's heart aches when she thinks about Rosalie and that she can't be with her, because her family expects her to marry.

That brings me to the second reason the story didn't work: I also couldn't really buy the conflict. Because Harriet's family knows she's lesbian and doesn't judge her for it. They still want her to marry because a single woman would be eyed suspiciously and if she is then also frequently seen with another single woman that would cause such a huge scandal that it would dishonour her cow entire family, and would even ruin the marriage prospect of her nieces and nephews. Because it's not like something happened shortly before the 1920s that seriously decimated the number of young men, no famously there were a shitton of surplus men in that time and if any woman couldn't find one there had to be something seriously wrong with her.

So Harriet keeps talking about her loving family who only wants her to get married for her own good and all the fault is with the evil society that makes her hide her true self and would make her face horrible consequences if it came out. Now that's true in theory...but also Harriet drags her prospective fiancee in the mixed-race speakeasy gay bar because she just has a feeling that he would be fine with it so it doesn't really feel as if she is actually that worried about consequences. (And why would she when even her stuffy conservative aunt goes "Get that hot lady singer's ass before you get married because nothing a lady does before her wedding should matter"). So the conflict/danger/tension/however you want to call it never feels present. Harriet is surrounded by people with fairly progressive views - which itself isn't bad because not every historical novel featuring queer characters needs to cause tension with "my loved ones would despise me if they found out who I really am" but...then it needs a different conflict because people in pretty dresses standing around isn't a story. But that's how this book felt.

This was a good read.

It focused a lot more in the family drama aspect than I was expecting, and that, coupled with what felt like a very, very slow pace, dimmed my enjoyment of what I expected to be more of a gay roaring twenties romp with lots of speakeasy highjinks.

I did find Harriet’s relationship with Charlie to be touchingly portrayed, and kind of the heart of the novel even more than her relationship with Rosalie. It spoke to me because I’ve also both experienced and witnessed the kind of fierce, protective love queer women and AFAB people can feel for the queer men and AMAB people in their life.

Recommended for fans of slow paced, slow burn historical romances.

I’m sorry but this was very boring.

The only thing that I liked in this book was the queer characters and general queer positivity that transpired. This is definitely something I’m looking for in historical fiction, but apart from that, this book had close to nothing.
I want my queer reads to have plot, fleshed out characters and a storyline that makes the reading interesting. Here, apart from the lgbtq+ cast, you have a very unoriginal story, extremely basic and uninteresting. A shame because the author’s previous book, though not perfect, had some great scenes and tension that made the reading exciting.

I was excited to read this and to be pulled into the 1920s, with the prohibition era and speakeasies. It’s a time period that has been used a lot in films and the aesthetics of it were something I wanted to read about! I was disappointed to realize that the storytelling was very detached from that atmosphere. A few scenes happen in the club, but the choice of this location adds nothing significant to the story. The writing wasn’t evocative at all, which is the opposite of what I expected for this book. Everything was extremely flat, from the setting to the characters. Clothes and locations were described in a way that was completely impersonal and irrelevant to the story. There was a total lack of tension and conflict. Basically, this is one of the most uneventful books I’ve read recently. I expected something to happen in the second half that would’ve taken the story somewhere but nope.

A sort of twist happens in the last ten percent and that resolution was… weird and so useless. There were so many other solutions and ways to end this. My only thought is: why??? Why would you do that to your characters? Why is this even something that you thought about and decided to include in your book? I’m so confused.

I hate being so negative but this book was really empty. No plot, nothing memorable, characters that had nothing special and no personality. Very bland and boring. And this very very awkward ending. There was so much potential with this idea, I’m very disappointed.

Giving two stars for the queer rep and Henry, one of the side characters.

Thank you to NetGalley, Entangled Publishing and the author for this eARC!

content warnings: homophobia, misogyny, sexual assault, death, mentions of war, death of a parent, incest

Content Warning: homophobia, death, misogyny, sexual assault, incest

I was really excited for this one — I love 1920s stories, and I'm always looking for more sapphic rep, but something about it just fell flat for me, even before the weird incest storyline at 94% in. I was hoping for more character growth/development, and I generally am not the biggest fan of instalove. That being said, maybe other readers will like this one more.