Thanks for providing a review copy. I was unable to get into the book and wont be returning to it, so no official review posted at this time.

All books by this author are worth the time to read, and this was no exception. Great, we'll written story.

by Andrea Renee Cox

This book was not my preferred style of reading at all. In fact, is was basically the complete opposite of the style of book I enjoy.

A Sapphire Season was shallow, vain fluff. Only the last three chapters (including the epilogue) held any depth, and by then, it was much too late for me to care. Two of the last three chapters (including the epilogue) were basically summaries of what happened over a long period of time, to let the reader know what happened to the characters. This seemed so out of place compared to the rest of the book. Back to the shallow, vain fluff, Mirabella often claimed not to be shallow, selfish, snobbish, or vain, yet her speech and actions on every page of the novel declared that she in fact was all of those things. She bossed everyone around; talked almost exclusively about ball gowns, gossip, her own dance card, and why she wanted to marry each man on her list; she forced her best friend to take her charity gowns and commands at nearly every turn; and she expected everyone to do as she asked when she asked it. Because of Mirabella alone, I disliked this book.

But there's more piled on top of that, unfortunately.

Gossip and clamoring for spots on dance cards dominated the conversation, and the narration was saturated with history dumps about each new character and their family history, oftentimes interrupting the pace of a conversation, which, of course, ground the scene to a sudden halt. Once I figured out what these history dumps were, I skipped the rest of them entirely as they were unnecessary to the scene or my knowledge bank for the story.

Mirabella preferred wearing a man's dressing gown rather than a woman's. This was strange and most likely historically inaccurate. Even stranger was it that "in it she... sometimes even went outdoors." That would definitely have been historically inaccurate. A woman would not have been seen outside in men's clothing during the chosen time period.

Many times, it seemed like Josephine was made to be stupid or uninformed solely to convey gobs of information to the reader. Those moments were tough to absorb for the sheer amount of information being shoved into my skull. I'm not sure how Josephine did it.

Characters quoted books and plays at every turn, which was way too often for my taste.

All of the other characters gladly took Mirabella's abuse (she controlled everyone in her world). This made her maid the most refreshing character, simply because she spoke back to her, which is not a trait I like, but at least she wasn't taking the abuse.

The faith thread was ultra-light and nearly nonexistent... until the last two or three chapters. If it hasn't been built up throughout the story, what's the point of bringing it in so late in the story?

Point of view was a major issue in this book. The first fifty percent was a terrible omniscient thing. Then there were two defined third-person points of view. After that, the terrible omniscient thing came back. In chapter seventeen, a completely new third-person point of view was introduced only so two non-lead characters could conspire about the leads... though they ended up not acting on their conspiratorial ideas anyway; therefore, I failed to see the point of that entire scene on conspiracy.

Characters apologized left and right for the tiniest reasons. It was quite exhausting, really. People don't apologize that often to each other in real life.

"Mirabella had been a Christian all her life." This statement was biblically inaccurate, since Jesus Christ said one must be "born again," meaning to be converted to Christianity after one was born into the world, rather than at the same time.

There were lots and lots of run-on sentences.

Giles seemed to be courting a Miss Smythe through a lot of the story, but then he claimed to have never been in that close of a relationship with her. Why, then, did they have their heads close together as they whispered to each other over dinner? For the time period, this was a sure sign of a courtship and impending betrothal. If he never intended to become betrothed to Miss Smythe, he shouldn't have strung her along (which is what it seemed like he was doing to me). His behavior contradicted who he had been earlier in the story, and it seemed to be that way only so the lead female would misunderstand his intentions.

Overall, this author's writing tactics were poorly hidden, and the story was meatless high-society frippery.

Content advisory:
* open gossip about affairs; two leads joke about pursuing an affair themselves
* alcohol usage on a nightly basis by a supposedly Christian character
* gambling
* a scene of pre-marital relations was spoken of, though it did not involve a lead character


The cover of this book was beautiful and enticing. That was my favorite thing about this entire book.


I receive complimentary books from publishers, publicists, authors, and sites like Netgalley, Litfuse Publicity Group, and Blogging for Books. They do not require me to write positive reviews. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

Thank you for the opportunity read and review this book. Overall, it wasn't a good fit for me. As a general rule, I do not post public reviews on my website unless I can give a book at least three stars, so rather than post a negative review, I will refrain from featuring this title on BookTalk. This does not preclude other BookTalk reviewers from covering this book, so a review may yet appear on our site.