My Thoughts:

I was immediately drawn into this story from the first pages because of the personalities of both West and his cousin Fred. The story starts out with Fred informing West that his half brother has just died and as a result he is now the heir of the Fenmore Estate. A place that West has loved since childhood.

The banter between everyone in this book is entertaining and captivating, to say the least. Pair that with a story that has everyone with a stake at risk, made this book hard to put down and I read it within one day.

Elena is a beautiful human being whose only focus seems to be helping those in need, even if it puts her at risk. She had a proxy marriage with West’s cousin and has been working tirelessly day and night for years to bring the estate out of ruin. This of course, is only possible because of her knowledge and appreciation for estate management and agriculture. But women aren’t allowed in those roles, so she fabricated a fake person as the estate manager and has been pretending to be two people the entire time.

With West becoming the new Lord Bickham of the estate, he and his cousin quickly arrive to make their claim of his childhood dream. Only to find Elena there and no idea how to address the situation. All the secrets slowly are revealed, but the dynamic between West and Elena is tense for the first many parts. They both love the estate with their entire selves, but they always feel like they’re competing or in the other’s way. So this is an ongoing confusing situation for them both.

Especially because Elena has no claim to stay there, but her hard work and visions for the tenants and property is the only thing that kept the entire thing from complete collapse. West owes everything to her and her work, but he struggles to get past the whole ‘it’s a woman’ doing all of this work.

All of this is what made the character development so wonderful to watch unfold. Everyone had hurdles to overcome and biases to deal with and it made everyone so much stronger in the end. I loved every moment of this story and watching Elena and West come to the happily ever after was a perfect treat for me!