The five Templeton sisters are struggling to survive following their mother's disgrace & then their father's death, but for quiet Emmeline, the silver lining is a quiet life of comfortable obscurity where she can indulge in her love of gardening. But when her sister Juliet accepts an outrageous wager that takes her to London for a season, an unexpected kiss with a handsome earl thrusts shy Emmeline into the middle of a shocking public scandal. Jonathan Parrish, the Earl of Melrose in known as The Nonesuch but one night uncharacteristically he over indulges on brandy & kisses Emmeline in a library. It was an innocent case of mistaken identity, a stolen embrace meant for one of his vivacious admirers but after one kiss the memory of her warm curves are imprinted forever on Jonathan’s fingertips, and he can’t forget the sweet taste of her lips against his. However Emmeline was seen fleeing the library whilst her face wasn’t seen the rumours start about the Lady in Lavender.
The start of a new series featuring five ‘ruined’ sisters. I thoroughly enjoyed Jonathan & Emmeline's journey to a HEA. I always love it when a Corinthian falls for an unlikely lady & Jonathan fell hard & fast. The characters had depth & I loved the sisters, as well as Lady Fosberry, Jonathan & Lord Cross. Emmeline was a delight & came alive whilst among or talking about her beloved roses, Jonathan was honourable, caring & just a downright decent man. I really enjoyed the banter between the characters & the chemistry between Jonathan & Emmeline was sizzling even though they’d only shared a kiss. This was a quick read & I would have loved for the Cudworths' & Lady Dingley to have had their comeuppance & hope this happens in future books.
My honest review is for a special copy I voluntarily read

Not Just Any Earl is a wonderful start to a new series in the Games Earls Play. I enjoyed every page of this story, and Jonathan and Emmeline were characters that I bonded with. A secret wager, desire and temptation lead to love and a joyous happily ever after.

Lord Melrose and the Lady of Roses

A sensual stolen kiss in a library. A lost ribbon. A girl infatuated with the study and scent of roses. This was a wonderful, original take on the Cinderella story with a twist that made for lots of enjoyable and humorous banter.

This story hinges on a case of mistaken identity. Lord Melrose has drunk a tad too much and thinks he is enjoying a seductive moment with his erstwhile mistress in a darkened room at a ball (who afterwards conveniently disappears from the story) but in fact is groping our heroine, Emmeline, a house guest, who snuck down to get something to read.

Emmeline rather enjoys the passionate embrace she unintentionally shares with Lord Melrose, but tries to put it from her mind... Until the ton learns Lord Melrose was seen in the library embracing a woman who was not his mistress nor the woman he is "supposed" to be marrying.

Complication: Lord Melrose has no idea who the mysterious woman in his arms was that night and his quest to find her is rife with unexpected impediments!

This was a great novella-length read. I will definitely be looking forward to more Anna Bradley!

Steam Level: One passionate kiss, one brief steamy scene

Life has not been easy for the Templeton sisters. Their mother ran off with another man and not long after their father died. Three years later the Ton are still gossiping about it.
Emmeline has spent the last three years in obscurity at the family home, Hambledon manor. That is until Emmeline and her sister Juliette agree to go London with a family friend Lady Fossberry.
When Emmeline shares an unexpected kiss with an handsome earl, this throws her back into the middle of another scandal.

This was a short but very sweet read. I absolutely loved Jonathan and Emmaline together they made a lovely couple. I enjoyed Reading how Jonathan loved Emmaline‘s nerdiness and absolutely adored this about her.
I also liked how the couple Met by sharing a kiss in a darkened library without ever laying eyes on each other.
This read was very PG but I didn’t mind this about the book. I am also looking forward to the next book in the series. I hope this is Lord cross and Juliet’s story.

Will her fears keep her away from happiness…

This quickly read entertaining novel introduces a family of five sisters ruined by their mother’s elopement with her lover. Now close to destitution, a wager brings two of them to the London’s season.

How I loved Jonathan, he is a man who follows his heart, refusing what is supposedly expected from him because of hearsay, he chases his mysterious lady, determined to do the right thing by her not only because it is his duty but also because she unleashed something in him.
I was more reserved about Emmaline, she first had only her sister’s happiness in mind, so I understand her reserve, but by the end, it is more cowardice from her part than anything else which made her choose to hide than love in plain sight.

A cute tale of a man who does not give up and the woman who led him to a merry chase, I just would have liked to see the villains get their right comeuppance instead of reading it wrapped in a few words.
Now to Juliet’s story.
4 stars

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹 onscreen light lovemaking scene

I have been granted an advance copy by the publisher Oliver Herber Books, here is my true and unbiased opinion.

This was the first book from this author, but I will definitely be checking out her other books. It was a cute story like a mean girls set in the regency era, where the mean girls were literally the whole ton.

Jonathan mistakenly finds himself with Emmeline in the library, however before she is discovered she takes off. Unfortunately, she is not so lucky as someone does see her and therein begins the search for Lady in Lavender.

Thank you #netgalley for this ARC.

Scents and scentsability!

A Cinderella remix / mashup with the glass slipper being replaced by a ribbon redundant with a subtle yet heady scent of roses.
Emmaline Templeton is one of five daughters whose scandalous mother Alice ran off to the continent with her Marquis lover years before. (Members of the Ton find that hard to forgive!) Their father died a year later. The young women are trying to make ends meet. Emmaline is trying to work out the elements constituting her father’s most perfect perfume. He never wrote the components down. The search is her passion.
Lady Fosberry (fairy godmother figure) descends on the family to whisk Lady Juliet away to spend the season with her. Emmaline will join them but stay in the background. Her desire is to search out the missing ingredient for her botanist father’s rose perfume.
What Emmaline didn’t expect, during a ball at Lady Fosberry’s house, when she crept downstairs into the darkened library, was to to be thoroughly kissed by Lord Melrose (aka the Nonesuch)
This wouldn’t do. In her head she’d seen Lord Melrose as a potential partner for her sister Juliet.
The ton is expecting Lord Melrose to become engaged to Lady Christine Dingley, a vacuous and, as it later proves, vicious and spoilt young woman. (Ugly sister equivalent!) But after the ball, with no announcement, the ton is awash with speculation and gossip. Society’s top group is portrayed as a rapid monstrosity baying for blood. Hounds of the Baskervilles are tame compared to the ton’s dismembering of its own!
I must admit Emmaline does my head in with her excuses, pondering and double takes about how the man she loves must marry her sister Juliet. I really, really lost all patience with Emmaline during these moments.
And yes, this Regency romance has its fairytale ending. A pleasant quick read.

An Xpresso Book ARC via NetGalley
(Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.)

As one of the Templeton sisters, Emmeline was always going to find the chance of love, difficult to find. Yet when Jonathan Parrish, Earl of Melrose, steals a kiss from Emmeline, everyone’s life is turned upside down. Whilst Johnathan is completely unaware of the identity of the woman whose kiss he has memorised, Emmeline is conflicted in wanting to reveal her identity but realising their ill-fated kiss. Yet as gossip and rumour swirls around them, will the truth be revealed.
As the first book in the series, ‘Games Earls Play’, this book is such a great start!. I loved how Emmeline’s sister Juliet appears to know but doesn’t and how subtle hints are dropped throughout the book. Both Johnathan and Emmeline are two great characters and their romance so sweet. My only disappointment was that this story was too short and ended before the couple could spend much time together.
I received an ARC from NeGalley in exchange for my honest review.

1st book of a series. Johnathan is determined to marry this season, but doesn't want to be tied to his mother's choice. Emmeline is one of 5 sisters who would rather study botany and roses with the hope to recreate her father's fragrance than find a husband. A case of mistaken identity sets rumors flying and threaten Emmeline and her sister's happiness.

Well-written with good pacing. I enjoyed the development of the romance.

ARC via Net Galley. All opinions are my own.

This was a fun, if a little too short, romance. Could have used a little more heat btn the LIs and could have been a little longer. The subplot w/ the sister Juliet was well done and I assume the next in the series, it was well teased out. A little more information about the Earls arranged marriage to the novels villain or his mothers reasons for trying to force it on him. Overall, Emmeline is well drawn and her interest in roses and scents makes for a nice diversion.

3 1/2 stars. I enjoyed Emmeline and Jonathans story. I wanted just a bit more from their relationship. How they met was so fun and sexy but after that I got tired of them just going to see various rose gardens then really nothing else. I love this authors work and really look forward to Cross and Juliets story as they were burning up the page!

This was an enjoyable book to read. It was a romance but l also learnt about roses and the care of them. The book was about a lady who tries to keep a secret.. The secret that she was in the library at the wrong time. The story and suspense develops until the end of the book. There was a happy ending and l will look for more books to read by Anna Bradley.

** 3.5 Stars **

This was a nice, straightforward introduction to the series, Games Earls Play, the Templeton sisters, and, of course, it includes a sweet romance. If you are looking for an exciting, heart palpating, hold-your-breath kind of read, well, this isn’t it. It is a steady, lovely romance between two very likable people who seem totally wrong for each other but are really so very right. I would have liked for it to be a tad longer so we could have gotten to know the characters a bit better – and so we could have spent more time seeing the dastardly dirty folks in the ton get their comeuppance.

The Templeton sisters are Emmeline (our current heroine), Euphemia (the oldest), Mathilda (the youngest), Juliet (her book is next I think), and Helena who is in service as the governess to the Marquess of Hawke (maybe he will be her hero???). Three years ago, two of the Templeton sisters had been in London for their season when their mother, Alice, ran off to the continent with her lover. The scandal, of course, drove the girls out of London and they’ve never set foot in it again. Since their father’s death, their circumstances have become direr and direr – until all of them will probably end up in service. So, when their father’s old friend, Lady Fosberry, coaxes Juliet and Emmaline back to London, it is their hope that Juliet will make a match – particularly with Lord Melrose.

Jonathan Parrish, the Earl of Melrose, is the male equivalent of a diamond of the first water. All the ladies admire him, sigh over him, and wish he’d notice them. He’s decided he’ll marry this season – and he supposes it might as well be Lady Christine Dingley since his mother once expressed a desire for that. He’s not particularly attracted to her, but he does have to marry. Isn’t it nice that fate has a way of stomping all over our best-laid plans?

At Lady Fosberry’s ball, Jonathan heads across the ballroom to request a dance from Lady Christine but becomes distracted when he notices a lovely widow with whom he’s spent some pleasant hours. Did I mention Jonathan is drunk as a skunk? He follows the lady from the ballroom and thinks he has lost her until he enters the library and notices her (well, he thinks it is her) there. He quietly comes up behind her and -- well, she didn’t stop him from kissing her – and she even kissed him back. Only, it wasn’t the lady he thought it was. Oops! He never saw her face because it was so dark – and now, he really wants to find her, she intrigues him – but he has no idea how to find her nor can he even describe her.

I really liked Jonathan because he was a lovely, sweet, caring, honorable man. I also really liked Emmeline who was all about family, and it was heart-warming to see the two of them become friends and then come to love each other. Again, I would really have liked the book to have been just a tad longer so we could see more of their coming to love each other.

I would recommend this book to a friend as a nice set-up for what promises to be a very nice series. The writing is good, the characters are very likable, the plot is a good one, but, overall, it is a pretty bland read. The set-up for the next book, which I assume will feature Juliet and Jonathan’s friend Lord Cross, is threaded throughout this one.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

The Templeton sisters have lived in scandal since their mother left their father for another man. It began a downward spiral and they have stayed in the country until a wager brings them to London. Emmeline agrees to go to London, to see the roses and discover the scent she is missing from her father’s work. An unexpected encounter with Jonathan, Lord Melrose, leads to a whole other adventure. Emmeline is a bit frustrating, afraid to reveal herself and the truth, always running away. It’s harder to face your problems and running away can make one appear guilty. Jonathan has avoided scandal and marriage, but now finds himself dealing with both. He searches for his mystery lady, gathering clues as to her identity, for she stirred something in him that he has never experienced before. But the ton loves gossip and they have long memories. Will Emmeline and Jonathan be able to Overcome society’s expectations and gossip?
I received this novel from net galley and the publisher as an ARC. Thank you! All thoughts and opinions are my own.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Not Just Any Earl is another stand-out novel by Anna Bradley. I loved the Swooning Virgin Society series, and this book, the beginning of a new series, is quite promising. This story brings family, scandal, and passion together to create an unforgettable romance.

Jonathan Parrish, the Earl of Melrose, is the ton’s darling. Jonathan is the catch of the season, and society is full of guesses about who the lucky lady will be. Miss Emmeline Templeton, mired in her mother’s scandal, is tricked into attending London’s Season. Emmeline is a botanist, completely nerdy, and an introvert. From the surface, Jonathan and Emmeline would never match; however, a brief, forbidden interlude changes everything.

I loved how Jonathan’s reputation as society’s darling did not define him. He is written in a way that humanizes him. His charm is evident, yet his disenchantment with society and expectations creates a living, breathing character. Emmeline’s studious, awkward characteristics endeared me to her instantly. Emmeline’s fear of the vapid, merciless debutantes and their mothers was raw and heartfelt.

The couple has one interlude, and that changes their trajectory forever. I loved how both Jonathan and Emmeline’s worlds get turned upside down by love. The passionate connection is there. However, it is the conversations the couple have that encourage their link and romance.

The plot was carefully thought out and well-paced. At times I felt the characters were too much in their heads, overthinking matters. The opposites attract theme was delivered flawlessly in a heart-warming, sparkling way. Not Just Any Earl is the first book in the new series Games Earls Play. This was an excellent jumping-off point for a new series, and I can’t wait for Cross and Juliet’s story! Anna Bradley has done it again, creating relatable, endearing characters with a plot that grabs the reader’s attention!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advance copy of this book through Netgalley and the publisher. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I am voluntarily posting an honest review after reading an advanced reader copy of this story.

I love this book, it gets a rare 5 stars from me. I was lucky enough to pick up Anna Bradley's first book, A Wicked Way To Win An Earl, by chance at a bookstore. I had never heard of her but the cover looked divine. I've been following her ever since, not creepy just on Facebook. Not Just Any Earl, also with a divine cover, has likeable characters and I read the book in one evening. I was up past my bedtime but it was worth it. Emmeline and Jonathan are good together from their first meeting, fabulous as a couple. Emmeline is scared of the Ton and frankly so am I. Johnathan isn't and being a man he can get away with anything and still be invited to dinner. I'm going to give away one tiny spoiler, the meet cute & hot was in a library. Pure gold to a bluestocking like me. I'd recommend clearing your calendar and ordering out for pizza because you won't want to put it down.

I'm now waiting on Juliet and Cross to finish their story, it's bound to be a whopper.

#AnnaBradley #NotJustAnyEarl #GamesEarlsPlay #Oliver-HeberBooks #Netgalley #historicalromance

This book was a delightfully easy read. I would classify it as a “clean” book without sex (until the very end and even that wasn’t a full blown sex scene). The storyline was unique and a bit unbelievable. A gentleman who seeks out a woman he ruined without anyone knowing who she is and she herself keeping the secret? I did love the characters and would definitely read books about the siblings. Overall, it kept my interest and was a good read.

This was a cute read. It reminded me of Cinderella, except instead of a shoe the author used a ribbon.
Emeline was a good character lead, not my favorite, but I still liked her. She loved her sisters and wanted the best for everyone of them, even if it meant giving up the love of her life. The way she interacted with Lord Melrose was kind of cute. Although, I still had a bit of trouble reconciling how she allowed him to kiss her the first time they met each other with who she truly was. Nonetheless, it all worked out.

I think Lord Melrose was the stronger character and I loved that he knew exactly what he wanted and especially that he was nobody’s fool. He knew from the moment he set eyes on Emeline that she was the one.

Juliet was also a strong character and I can’t wait to read more about her and Lord Cross.

Lovely start to a promising new series! I absolutely adored our hero. He was sweet, funny, kind, genuinely fond of his sisters, and just such a good guy - My kind of hero!
Emmeline, our heroine, I mostly liked. She was of the learned, bluestocking, different kind of heroine. She spent most her time digging around her father's rose garden, trying to restore it to its former glory and recreating the mystery perfume her father had finished before his death without telling anyone the formula. Only towards the end, to create some last-minute drama, did she take a decidedly not-sensible turn. But luckily, our dear hero remained sensible and simply followed her.

All in all, I thought this was a very sweet story about two lovely people. I loved seeing them becoming friends and developing feelings. I also really liked that the story was fairly short. There was no drawn-out drama, just two people meeting, developing feelings, and finding happiness with each other. And really, that's all I want from my romances in these confusing times.

It’s never been easy to be one of the five Templeton sisters, but for quiet Emmeline, the silver lining surrounding the dark cloud of her family’s disgrace is a life of comfortable obscurity. But when her sisters accept an outrageous wager that takes the family to London for a season, an unexpected kiss with a handsome earl thrusts shy Emmeline into the middle of a shocking public.
Jonathan Parrish, the Earl of Melrose never meant to kiss Emmeline Templeton. It was an innocent case of mistaken identity, a stolen embrace meant for one of his vivacious admirers. Emmeline Templeton is perfectly wrong for him, and he’s never before spared the shy wallflower a single glance, but after a single kiss the memory of her warm curves are imprinted forever on Jonathan’s fingertips, and he can’t forget the sweet taste of her lips against his.
This is a convoluted tale of inconvenience, mistakes and love.
Anna Bradley has written another winner.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher and NetGalley. This in no way affects my opinion of this book which I read and reviewed voluntarily.