Something in the Heir is the delightful, madcap adventure of Emmeline and Will Pershing trying to keep their home. You know when reading the synopsis there will be craziness for borrowing two orphans, George and Rose, from the orphanage to play their children in order to keep their home. Emmie’s grandfather has a clause in the contract to continue his bloodline so Emmie can keep her childhood home. She and Will had developed a working agreement rather than a marriage. They begin to fall in love again during all the upheaval caused by the children.

Rose and George are precious and precocious little stinkers who just want to live a simple life not in an orphanage. They charm and frustrate Emmeline and Will, the butler, the maids, the valet, even the stable grooms. All together this is a sweet, fantastic afternoon read. I did not want to put it down.

When I started this book, I was so excited by the storyline. I thought this was going to be different. The storyline:
Will and Emmeline are married. When they married, they were given Winnover Hall to live in by her grandfather, the Duke of Welshire. There was one condition. They must have a child with in 5 years.
Emmeline didn't conceiv.e. Not only didn't she conceive but her and Will basically became strangers living in the same house. So, she decided to invent 2 children, so that they may keep their home. But when the Duke demands to meet them, Emmeline now has to what she is going to do. Her solution is to use 2 orphans to pose as her children.
So I thought, this will be good. You have 2 kids trying to be someone they're not. And two adults getting to know one another again, romantically.
But nope. No romance whatsoever. It was a story about two orphans. And the deception they were trying to bring about.
I was very disappointed.
2 stars⭐⭐
I want to thank Netgalley for the opportunity to review this book.

This book wasn't for me. I wanted to like it, I just couldn't get into it. I'm sure others will enjoy this it just wasn't for me.

This is a a very creative story. The characters are funny and witty. The main characters are the Pershings, Emmie and Will and the children George and Rose. Will and Emmie are faced with a crisis and use the opportunity to fall in love all over again. George and Rose are orphans who bring delightful and unexpected changes to the household. They start as strangers working towards different goals but end as a loving family.

This is a super cute historical romance, where our couple WIll and Emmie marry for convenience, she needs to be married to keep the house she grew up in, and he needs her to help with his political career. Will might have wanted it to be more but after a disastrous marriage night, and some awkwardness in the bedroom after that, they end up as just partners. Emmaline has decided to be the most perfect wife ever, at least until she has to tell her husband that they have two made-up children...

Some strange decisions are made, like asking their friends and neighbor if they could maybe just like borrow their kids. Like it will only be for like 8 weeks and no the parents can't come, we know we've never had an interest in your children before but it will be fun! Cue the parents slowly backing away being like um no thank you, strange people. We're just gonna go...

Thankfully Will is like hey!!! I know we will borrow kids from the orphanage! Even though the nun is like um excuse me? Your going to give us money, take two children, very specific children, for basically two months then bring them back? Well since WIll and Emmie are very willing to pay whole lotta money the nun is like okay, I have the perfect children for you... ( insert nun cackling evilly ) you know these kids must have a history, and that nun is giving the Pershings some Karma for the crazy plan they are trying to accomplish.

Enter George and Rose who make WIll and Emmy's heart melt at their first meeting, and after a while also want to pull out their hair while falling in love with them. The kids definitely aren't sure what to do about their new situation and have many plans for when it's over... Which led to many shenanigans, laughter, and maybe just a bit of theft... and loving home.
I loved how bringing in the children shook up WIll and Emmy's relationship and made them realize what they had been missing. At the same time, they were falling in love with the kids they were also falling in love with each other.
I love all of Suzanne Enoch's books I've read and look forward to reading everything she writes.

DNF at 53%

I tried. I really did, but I just couldnt with these people any more.

I didn't really like Will or Emmie, their selfishness drove me insane.

Why even bother with James?

I wanted to stick around for George and Rose, but I had to tap out. Those kids deserved better

Lots will love this but it wasn't for me.

What a weird book. I can’t say I disliked it - I’m just confused z this read and felt more like a regency heist book, focused around the life of two children. The main characters just fell away. There were so many POVs it got confusing. Any romance was briefly mentioned which automatically brings my appreciation for this book way down. Really abrupt ending too.

Something in the Heir was a fun, whimsical romp into the world of Regency Romances. I found many scenes with George and Rose to be amusing and heartfelt and I thoroughly enjoyed watching them become a family. However, I did wish the story focused a little more heavily on the romance between Emmeline and Will. They had great chemistry at the beginning and then it kind of fizzled out for me. Overall, this was an enjoyable and charming read. Huge thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Marriages of convenience are not unusual in the Regency period so Emmeline and William Pershing have been doing quite well in their relationship for the last eight years though is it is run more like a business than wedded bliss. Will married Emmeline at her request because she was desperate to keep the manor where she grew up in owned by an irascible old grandfather Duke who required her to be married in order to stay in her home. William would do anything for Emmeline and has longed for their marriage to be more but settled for what they currently have.

Emmeline and Will are commanded to attend the Duke’s birthday at his estate and required to bring their children of which they have none. Several years before Emmeline manufactured said children in order to fulfill the rest of the terms for retaining her beloved home. Once Will understands what Emmeline has done, they decide rather naively that children can be “borrowed” to continue with the ruse. They blithely make arrangements at a London orphanage to procure a young boy, George, age 8 and his sister, Rose age 5, then bring them back to the country manor for “lessons” on being their children. George and Rose have had a tough life and need to be taught within a short period of time all the manners and skills young wealthy children of status have already acquired by their ages.

George and Rose go along with the scheme; however, they have other ideas about learning to live with the high and mighty as well as what will happen to them when their services are no longer required. Emmeline and Will are so focused on the goal they forget these are human lives and not livestock to be treated as such. This story is told in several POVs than are a bit much though it is clear maybe the smartest one of all is the eight-year-old boy who has lived by his wits while caring for his sister. While fairly predictable there are some entertaining moments and a good send up on the pretensions of the ton whose lives are often less than admirable.

I picked this one up because I was in the mood for a quick, fun, rom com. This was short on romance but delivered many funny moments. I only wish that things could have been handled a bit better in the plot. I felt that Emmaline lacked compassion and I felt bad for Will, Rose and George for most of the book. The author delivered such warm and funny moments so the writing was spot on and I will definitely read future works. Many thanks to the publisher for a chance to read and review this book.

A delightful romp of a book, perfect for when you need a light read with plenty of laughs. The initial setup and conflict is rather convoluted, but just don't think too hard and everything else is fun enough to distract you from that. With romance, found family, and adventure, there's a little bit of everything in this one, so you'll never be bored!

My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a DNF at 38% for me. I just lost all motivation to pick it back up. I did not love the two MCs and I didn’t buy into the romance between them since all they talked about the first quarter of the book is how they only have a business relationship. Then all of a sudden I’m supposed to believe they finally see each other in a new way. I just didn’t like any of the interactions between them. Also, I struggled with the fact that no one in Emmie’s family had come to visit or notice that for seven years she didn’t actually have a child? The plot just seemed way too far fetched for me.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

Something in the Heir follows Emmeline and Will Pershing, whose marriage of convenience has gone swimmingly for eight years, until they -- and two children that they don't have -- are invited to Emmeline's grandfather's birthday party. Desperate to keep the family estate they've lived on for the length of their marriage, Emmie and Will borrow two orphans, George and Rose, in the hopes that they might masquerade as the perfect little family of four that Emmeline pretended they were.

I have some generally mixed feelings about this book, mainly because I think it had a lot of potential. George and Rose were adorable little scallywags, and I loved the idea of a late-romance-meets-found-family romp. I assumed we'd get a lot of comedy from dealing with rambunctious young children, and I was hoping for some tender moments as the lead couple fell in love with each other and with the children. I wasn't unhappy with Emmeline and Will's characters, though I did find Emmeline a tad annoying a lot of the time.

Where the book fell apart for me was that it tried to do way, way too much. Literally every character in this book has at least one section from their perspective, and like I'm talking characters like the butler and the housekeeper. We do primarily jump between Emmeline, Will, George, and Rose's perspectives, always only obvious once you've read a sentence or two. Though I can understand some of the intention behind this choice -- alternating perspectives can help more effectively develop relationships between characters, create tension, keep things interesting, etc. -- all it did for me was make the narrative feel incredibly bogged down and overlong, especially given that the book was in the third person anyways. I think a singular close third following Emmeline would've been more than sufficient, or perhaps even only following Emmeline and Will if it did feel pertinent that we got our romantic lead's perspective. Limiting the characters whose brains we hung out in would've made the narrative feel tighter, and honestly would have kept a lot of the plot more interesting. After all, how am I supposed to feel fear/heartbreak/shock, etc., at Emmeline realizing the kids have run away when I literally just watched the kids gather their things and run away?

A more limited perspective might have also made the romance feel more like a romance, particularly in the realm of Emmeline and Will discovering/rediscovering each other. There were occasional moments where one of them would surprise both each other and the reader -- such as Will getting the musicians for the waltz -- but then there were other moments where one would find out about something the other did in a prior scene, a conversation they had with one of the kids or something, and it never felt as magical because we'd already been privy to it for so long.

In addition to the wealth of perspectives sort of ruining the tension for me as a reader, I also felt like the plot was massively imbalanced and often lacked focus. I was with it through the beginning, when the conflict was initially introduced and Emmeline and Will explored their available options. I thought for sure once they got George and Rose, we would see a lot of struggle between the pairs as the couple tried to wrangle the orphans. And I was looking forward to a relatively protracted stay at the Duke's house where the four would have to keep up their performance.

Of course, what actually happened was the orphans' older brother entered the scene, and suddenly the primary conflict is almost overshadowed by this new -- really large! -- twist. I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt, but without this twist the book could have been at LEAST 50 pages shorter. Or, rather than been shortened, the book could have devoted more than 3-5% of its overall space to the climax and resolution to the grandfather-thinks-we-have-kids, we-might-lose-our-house, and romance plots.

Overall I think this book had a lot of great elements, and while I enjoyed the prose and characters, I wasn't a huge fan of several choices which lead the book to feel rather bloated and unsatisfying to me as a reader. If you want a sweet, clean read, this is a good choice, but it likely won't live up to the expectations of most romance/romcom readers.

An original premise, charming prose, and hilarious characters make this story a positive delight.

“Are there any more little blessings I should know about?”

Mrs. Pershing informs her husband that she has made up not one, but two children! To keep her estate Emmeline married her friend Will, but they didn’t have an obligatory child in five years. So she made some up. Her grandfather, the Duke who owns the estate, insists that she bring her children. The Pershing’s try to borrow children from neighbors but eventual are forced to get some from an orphanage.

The romance is subtle and sweet, but secondary to the family plot. The focus is on humorous antics and heartwarming family time as two partners, who are almost strangers, learn how to be parents.

Cute but somewhat predictable friends to partners to lovers romance. George and Rose's antics make this novel well worth the read. Also, getting a glimpse of the "upstairs, downstairs" staff responsible for running the house was fun to read about, especially how loyal they all were. Otherwise, it's a fun-to-read, lighthearted bit of fluff. IMHO, not one of Suzanne Enoch's best.

This book was mostly about one’s emotions, passions and ways to keep them inside or... not being able to do so. Because of that, you could quickly find yourself reading on. When you read about an emotion for 100 pages or so, you’re bound to do just that, but trust me when I say - stick around for the ending. It was perfect..

This book was just a joy to read. It was light and fun and somehow the perfect restful read ..in spite of the mayhem in the story! It definitely required suspension of disbelief....most of the story was too silly to be true! But that is what made it fun! I love a good story of found family, closed door romance, and a second chance at love.

If you can suspend disbelief, Something In the Heir is delightful and full of hijinks. You need to be in the mood for a slightly absurd, ridiculous romp, rather than a true love story. It’s a little silly, but if you’re looking for that - it will hit its mark.

Emmeline Hervey asked William Pershing to marry her eight years ago to ensure that she could remain at Winnover Hall, the estate where she grew up. The estate is owned by Emmeline’s grandfather, the Duke of Welshire, and according to the rules, Winnover goes to the first person in their generation to get married. Once married, they have five years to have a child. If they don’t have a child, they lose Winnover. If they do have a child, they can remain at Winnover as long as they live there. Emmeline’s parents are moving to Bath for her father’s health, so ownership is up for grabs for Emmeline and the duke’s other grandchildren.

Emmeline and Will grew up together and when Emmeline’s cousin gets engaged, Emmeline sees her old friend Will as the answer to her immediate need for a groom. She never tells him about the requirement for a child to retain Winnover, and after an initial lack of success at conceiving and some discouraging news from a doctor, she and Will rarely share the same bed. Instead, they have a very successful partnership where Emmie is the perfect hostess to support his advancement in his government position. They live together, but their lives intersect primarily at dinners and other events related to Will’s work.

Although Will doesn’t know about the requirement for children to remain at Winnover, of course, Emmie’s cousin and the rest of her family does. To deceive them, Emmie has made up two children—Malcolm,7, and Flora, 5—and has explained their absence over the years by telling her relatives that the children are sickly. Her deception reaches a critical point when her grandfather is celebrating his 70th birthday and insists that all his descendants attend, including Emmie and Will and their children. To keep up the charade, Emmie comes clean to Will and they come up with a plan to “borrow” brother and sister orphans for eight weeks, during which time they will train them to pretend to be their son and daughter at the duke’s party. The orphans, George Fletcher, 8, and his sister, Rose, 5, prove to be street-smart and disruptive, upending household routines and causing other complications.

Something in the Heir is billed as a romantic comedy (Emmie and Will grow closer while working together to find and prepare the children), but there’s not much romance, and I didn’t find it that amusing. After accepting the main premise that Emmie, who was supposed to be smart and capable, would believe that pretending to have two children was a sound solution to her problem, the idea that Emmie’s family – especially her grandfather and her cousin—would not find it strange to have never seen the Pershing children in seven years seemed incredible to me. As a result, I never felt that engaged with the characters or their story.

Thanks to #NetGalley and #StMartinsPress for the ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This was a fun, hijinks to the max read, that offered a new (almost impossible in the world of historical romance!) spin on a second chance story. There were aspects of the books that I really enjoyed, like the setup of the conflict and the relationship between Emmie and Will and their relationship arc. However, at times it was a bit too chaotic for me to be able to follow, for example at quite a few times in the book it was unclear whose POV you were in for the first chunk of a chapter, which started to drive me a bit nuts. I also found that the chaos of the plot and side characters detracted from the love story. I wanted more moments between Emmie and Will to flesh out their feelings and pasts, part of this I will acknowledge is my wanting more open-door scenes which is a personal preference that not all share!

Overall, Something in the Heir is a fun, historical screwball rom-com, that fans of closed-door romances will enjoy!