I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Counting on Love by Carol Coventry is a third person dual-POV Regency romance. When Georgiana’s mother encourages her to accept the attentions of Jasper, a future earl, Georgiana isn’t too keen on the match but doesn’t know how to stop the gossip going around the Ton. Then she meets Jasper’s youngest brother, Reginald, and finds herself drawn to him while Jasper continues his pursuit.

What I thought was really interesting was how Georgiana’s family was invited to Reginald’s family’s home while the earl was on his deathbed. It cements that Jasper is considering Georgiana very seriously as his future countess and provides a reason why Reginald and Georgiana are in such close quarters. I think we would find it quite awkward in the modern day, especially given that Georgiana and Jasper don’t know each other that well, but their mothers do know each other and the courts of the Regency period tended to be somewhat close-knit from what I know.

Reginald and Georgiana bond over intellectual pursuits and balance each other quite well. Georgiana is quite good with numbers and patterns while Reginald is more gifted in linguistics and literature. It makes a lot of sense why he was originally going to pursue a more religious profession as they tended to allow more time for scholarly pursuits, but his personal relationship with faith impeded him. On Georgiana’s end, her mother doesn’t really support her skills and refers to them as ‘parlor tricks,’ which creates a bit of a complex towards her own intelligence.

The love triangle between Georgiana, Jasper, and Reginald is complicated mostly by Georgiana’s mother and Reginald’s loyalty to Jasper. The ‘saw her first trope’ is used from Reginald’s POV with Jasper having met up with Georgiana first and has repeatedly made his intentions towards her quite clear. Georgiana is looking for a love like her parents’ marriage, one with a spark and finds that very quickly in Reginald, since Jasper doesn’t know about any of this, he’s making things a bit awkward for everyone.

I would recommend this to fans of love triangles in Regency romances and readers of historical romance looking for a grief angle.