This is a witty, poignant story in which two orphans are borrowed from an orphanage. What the couple didn't know was that these sweet little ones were thieves.
Smart, capable heiress Emmeline Pershing will do anything to keep her beloved home; and all it takes is an arranged marriage and a teeny white lie to fulfill her family’s silly inheritance rules. But now her little fib means that she and her completely unsuspecting husband are going to inherit big — and very messy! —trouble.
Emmeline and William Pershing have enjoyed a perfectly convenient marriage for eight years. Their relationship is a seamless blend of their talents and goals. They’ve settled into separate, well-ordered lives beneath the same roof, and are content to stay that way—or so Emmeline thinks. And if William has secretly longed for a bit more from the woman he adores, he’s managed to be content with her supreme skills as a hostess and planner, which has helped him advance his career.
Suzanne Enoch has written a comical romance. This is the first I have read by her in sometime. I really loved this book and look forward to more by her soon.
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.

I loved this book. I thought it was a very inventive take on the standard Regency romance. Emmie needs to get married before her cousin in order to stay in the house she grew up in. She marries her childhood best friend and supports him in his career, but they have a distant marriage. In 8 years she's requested to go to her grandfather's birthday party and bring the children she was not only required to have in order to inherit, but the children she made up and wrote to family about for years.

Emmie and Will end up "borrowing" two orphans to pose as their children. Along the way they of course fall in love with the children and learn to love each other as adults rather than the childhood friends or "partners" they had been in their marriage. Their relationship was very cute, and it was nice to see them both appreciate each other and also learn to open their hearts to their new relationships with the kids.

Of course there is the villain, the standard misunderstandings, and the children expecting to be left after 8 weeks, and these are handled in such a way as to bring the new family, and the loving staff closer together. There is also a cute secondary love story between the lady's maid and another staff member that I enjoyed.

This was a rated (barely) PG romance that I highly enjoyed.

Emmeline and William like each other and marry for what each can give to the other. Emmeline gives William the connections and social hosting his career needs. William gives Emmeline her family home that her grandfather allows them to live in. After not having any children in the first 5 years of marriage, Emmeline writes to her family of their fictitious two sickly children. When her grandfather throws himself a big birthday party, they must come up with two children to bring for the weekend. Deciding to borrow children from an orphanage leads to chaos. I received an ARC from NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for my honest review.

Something in the Heir has got to be one of the cutest and, to me, funniest, Regency novels. There are none of the bodice ripping scenes normally found. There are so many scenes in which you know are not going to turn out well and provide dilemmas for the main characters-Emmie and Will, George and Rose. Rose and George are delightful children with a mix of sweetness and misbehavior. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This was cute and fun. The whole "main characters realize orphans are people and not commodities and then using them to become better" definitely rubbed me the wrong way in the beginning, but I think the author approached it better as the story went on. There really wasn't much romance, more so a family love story, and it did get repetitive at points, but it was a sweet story.

First off, credit where credit's due: the child characters in this book are genuinely well-written. Child characters in romance can be hard to pull off, and when they're done wrong, they're intolerable. Rose and George never feel like anything less than real children with their own personalities, thoughts, and goals, and not everyone can manage that. So kudos to Enoch for doing it.

However.

First off, I think "romance" is the wrong category entirely for this book. The plot is kicked off by a marriage of convenience, yes, but that aspect fades into the background after the prologue and rarely resurfaces. The main thrust of the book is not the relationship between Emmeline and Will, it's the hijinks they get up to in the process of trying to con Emmeline's grandfather. And those hijinks are . . . honestly, pretty uncomfortable to read about! First of all, they're doing all this to keep . . . a house. I'm sure it's a nice house, and I'm sure it has a lot of sentimental memories attached to it (well, for Emmeline; Will seems to view it exclusively in terms of convenience) but the lengths they go to in order to hang onto it stop seeming cute and start seeming deranged pretty fast. This would work better if the plot was more of a straight-up farce, but Enoch seems to genuinely want you, the reader, to invest in Emmeline and Will's future happiness. And their house. I'm sorry, but none of Emmeline's stated reasons for wanting to stay felt especially compelling. She mostly seemed to be in it to spite her cousin, who would inherit it otherwise.

The other issue- and it's a big one - is how Emmeline and Will relate to George and Rose. When I read the blurb, I didn't guess how they would come by the two unruly (and honestly, they're not even that unruly) orphans; I assumed there would be some kind of equitable arrangement. There is not. First they try to acquire their friend's children; then they try to bribe a tenant farmer on their land (while Emmeline internally sniffs that they have more children than they can afford, which did not endear her to me) who also refuse the offer. Their next move is to go to an orphanage and offer to "borrow" a pair of children for six weeks. Because the children at the orphanage have no one in the world advocating for them, this works. Basically, they rent these kids, with the full intention of returning them after they've served their purpose. It is deeply off-putting. I wouldn't treat a dog this way. After a few days (and an abortive escape attempt) they offer to find the children an alternate home after the six weeks are up, but the fact remains, they are treating two living, breathing, feeling human beings as - I'm sorry, there's no other way to put this - property. It is deeply cruel, and while they (of course) eventually grow to love the little moppets and adopt them in the end, it's not enough to make up for how they started.

This book doesn't function as a romance; it doesn't function as a heartwarming family story; it doesn't function as a comedy. The elements are just too poorly blended, and the characters are too unfeeling. I've seen over-the-top behaviour done well, when it takes place in a heightened reality (Alexis Hall's Something Fabulous does this quite well) but the tone isn't right for that kind of comedy. It just doesn't work on any level, for any reader. It's a real shame.

This was so boring and bad. It felt like the main characters were using the kids as props and didn't actually think of them as people. Also it was hard to tell who's pov it was in most of the time and why did we get random characters povs?

I received an arc through netgalley.

Emmeline was to remain her childhood home, Winnover Hall. Will was secretly in love with Emmeline so he said yes to marrying her 8 years ago. After drifting apart over the years, Emmeline has to come clean. She lied to her family about having children in order to meet the Duke's demands to be able to stay in Winnover Hall. Now they have to continue their charade and find two kids to pretend to be their children so they can stay in their home.

I wanted to love this story as I thought it was a cute, sort of second chance romance. However, there were some pacing issues and repetitive passages that cause me to give it 3 stars. Also, while the book was written in third person, it bounces from POV to POV without a smooth transition making it difficult to know whose perspective we are in.

I enjoyed the story overall but also felt like there were a few unnecessary subplots and a lot of character development that seemed to happen off page.

It was a refreshing story, if somewhat predictable and I would recommend it to anyone who likes historical fiction. It was an easy read and had some charming moments.

Thank you to NetGalley for an eArc in exchange for my honest opinion.

4.5 Stars
I had a slow start getting into this book. Mostly, I think because I haven't read a book like this before (in the time period maybe...). But I ended up really liking the story. Took me so long to read because I got sick twice but I powered through and finished because it was amazing!
The story and the characters are very clever and the buildup to the birthday party, while long, was what made the book that much more exciting. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the relationships of all the characters progress throughout the story, including the servants relationships with each other and with the kids. The ending was very heartwarming and beautiful and I'm glad I got the chance to read it.:)

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for giving me this ARC (Advanced Reading Copy). I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book!

My synopsis: Emmeline and William get married in order to keep Emmeline's childhood home in their possession. They never really seem to find a way to connect on any level other than business partners. Emmeline does everything she can to make sure William succeeds. Emmeline is caught in a lie when her grandfather invites them to stay at his estate and she must come clean to the fact that she lied and said they had two children. William and Emmie find two orphans to pretend to be their children. All they need to do is get them to pass off as proper children and stop running away.

My take: I found Something in the Heir refreshing! It was a different take on faking a relationship and such a cute idea. I loved all the characters' POVs and I liked that the intimacy was implied. The grandfather was a character I really liked (surprisingly). This is the perfect novel to check out if you are looking for a sweet novel with a HEA and characters you'll root for.

It pains me to DNF a Suzanne Enoch book - especially an ARC - but I really did not enjoy this book. I respect Enoch's attempt to try something a bit different from her usual style, but it just did not work for me. I did not feel any emotional investment in Emmeline and Will's relationship, and honestly did not really like the characters individually either. There was a promising spark between them in the first chapter, but the characters you get after the abrupt time jump are completely different. Even though I've thawed to the use of plot moppets over the years, this was just grating instead of cute (maybe I'm just in a cynical mood right now, but I could not force myself to keep going).

Regardless of the above, thank you to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for providing an ARC for review!

A delightful regency era book about a woman who loves her childhood home so much that she rushes into a marriage of convenience and concocts two imaginary children in order to keep it. Of course, a house of cards like this is incredibly precarious, and sure enough, an occasion arises (8 years later!) when Emmeline will be forced to present the imaginary children to her grandfather, the Duke. Her husband being secretly in love with her (of course), he helps her implement a plan to "borrow" two children from an orphanage in order to continue this subterfuge... and that's when things *really* go off the rails!

Enjoying this book requires a certain suspension of belief, but I *did* really enjoy it... I was rooting for them the whole way! A fun, captivating read!

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion, which I'm always happy to give. 😉 My thanks to the author, publisher, and #NetGalley.
#SomethingInTheHeir

This is such a delightful story!! It's wonderfully historical and English, has found family, a bit of humor, and even some second chance romance in the most unlikely form.

I absolutely loved the contrasting personalities of the two main characters and how they worked to better each other. They complimented each other so well and while the steam level was on the low end, I felt it was perfect for this charming little story. Instead of bringing the heat, this book was a lot about sweet, unexpected love in many different places.

The family and staff of Winnover will win your heart, I promise this book does not disappoint!

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC!

Well everyone is entitled to their opinion, I am fully aware of this fact. But I have to open my mouth about some reviews I have read where people were bashing this book for the lack of romance it contained, stating they were misled by the book's description. I am sorry, maybe we are reading two different descriptions or two different books altogether. I nowhere, nohow, from reading the description of this book got the impression that the main focus was the romance angle. Yes, it is part of it, being theirs was a marriage of convenience and one partner was in love and the other unaware, a usual trope in the romance genre, my impression was the main focus, plot, storyline, evolved around Emmie's make-believe children, acquiring said children and being able to pass the children off as theirs when the time came. I believe that is the main storyline here, the romance is secondary. As for the book being unbelievable, of course it is unrealistic, it isn't supposed to be realistic, it doesn't have to be, that is why it is a work of fiction after all.
With all that being said, I thought this was a light, fast-paced, entertaining read with witty, quirky characters that kept me amused to the end. I give it 5 stars and recommend to regency readers looking for light, funny entertainment for the afternoon.
Thank you to St. Martin's Press and to Net Galley for the free ARC, I am leaving my honest review in return.

There are certain themes I truly enjoy and regency and marriage of convenience is as a combo I have to read.. I've had not read anything by Enoch prior to this book. Main characters Rose and George really brought charm and humor, a believable "relationship." Its this ground breaking literature, no, but is it cute, fast paced and a fun read, YES! It was silly and amusing If you’re a fan of Bridgerton and want a quick, easy, light-hearted historical rom-com then definitely give this one a shot!

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this Digital ARC

From its description, I thought this book was gonna be a silly little rom-com, with sprinklings of found/chosen family. Both romantic and familial developments felt slow and disingenuous.
As it is, it’s just two bland, unlikable people who have little to no morals deciding to grab some orphaned children off the street, dress them up, and trot them out in front of their family. For a house.

Not much really happens in the book, so there’s not much to dissect. 2 stars.

I really wanted to love this book as it is something that is SO straight up my alley when I want to read a historical fiction. However I just felt it fell a bit flat. The kids were darling and they are what kept me invested in the novel. The hero/heroine were just not great. The world building was wonderful though!

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin's Griffin for an eARC copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martins Press for an eARC.

I wanted to like this one, I really did, but unfortunately it was a miss for me.

It was off to a great start...marriage of convenience, crazy relatives, property laws, orphans. I mean who doesn't like a book where the main characters go looking for some orphans borrow for a couple months?! I liked the characters, and the story's concept, but it just never pulled together in any sort of believable way.

An absolutely beautiful and lovely tale about a second-chance romance between a married couple, found-family, and the delightful adventures and love that all came about because of one not-so-little lie!

I wouldn't really have characterized this as a true romance novel; the romance part of it is really a secondary storyline to a lot of the other things going on in the plot. It comes across as more of a screwball comedy.

While the characters are likeable enough, the plot feels a bit messy to me.