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I received a copy of Char­lotte Brent­wood’s Gloved Heart for review pur­pos­es. As always, this review reflects only my hon­est thoughts on the book.

 width=Gloved Heart
by Charlotte Brentwood

Pub­li­ca­tion Date: April 20th 2019

eBook; 225 pages

Genre: His­tor­i­cal Fic­tion, Romance

 

 

Amy Miller is strug­gling to come to terms with her new life as a moth­er, while being a reluc­tant guest in a rigid gen­try house­hold. A vic­tim of abuse, she is deter­mined to nev­er trust a man again.

Hen­ry Rus­sell has loved Amy for as long as he can remem­ber, but his fam­i­ly want noth­ing to do with her. A chance encounter with Amy rekin­dles a friend­ship which might save both of them.

The dis­cov­ery of a secret which holds the key to Amy’s past will change them both for­ev­er, and jeop­ar­dise any chance they have for hap­pi­ness. Can Hen­ry show Amy that true love will give her every­thing she could ever need?

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My Review

When Char­lotte con­tact­ed me about review­ing Gloved Heart, I was excit­ed to both read (and “meet!”) a new author and explore a new series.  Gloved Heart is the sec­ond book in the Hearts of Amber­ley series, but reads quite well as a stand­alone novel.

Ear­ly on, I was drawn into Amy’s story—I want­ed noth­ing more than to pro­tect both her and Ben­jamin from any and all harm.  And, of course, Hen­ry Rus­sell re-enters her life to do just that.

My heart broke for Amy and Hen­ry as the sto­ry progressed—they could be so hap­py togeth­er, clear­ly, but Amy’s trag­ic past haunts her and cau­tions her against becom­ing close to anoth­er man.  By exten­sion, the mark it’s left on Amy haunts Hen­ry in its own way.  While he cer­tain­ly can’t begin to imag­ine the depths of what she’s gone through, his love for her deep­ens his empathy—it pains him to con­sid­er just how much hurt she’s had to con­tend with, as well as how it’s now affect­ing him through their relationship.

The sub-plot involv­ing Amy’s birth moth­er was almost as entic­ing as the pri­ma­ry sto­ry of Gloved Heart. As she inter­act­ed with the Fortes­cues, I longed for Amy to find bal­ance in the house­hold and regain some sem­blance of the famil­ial hap­pi­ness she’d lost long before we, as read­ers, came to Amberley.

The only aspect of this nov­el that rubbed me the wrong way was Barrington—of course, his char­ac­ter is meant to be unlike­able, so, to some extent, that’s an expec­ta­tion. But what I think both­ered me more was (spoil­er alert) his regret towards the nov­el­’s end seemed com­par­a­tive­ly unre­al­is­tic.  I’d spent the nov­el despis­ing the man (and quite under­stand­ably, I’d say, giv­en what we see of his char­ac­ter), so for him to be apolo­getic imme­di­ate­ly struck me as wrong.

That being said, book three of this series, Bar­ring­ton Meets His Match, is forthcoming—as much as I despised the char­ac­ter while read­ing him from Amy’s post-tragedy point of view, there’s cer­tain­ly poten­tial for a read­er’s feel­ings to shift giv­en his per­spec­tive of him­self, arro­gant or not.

As a whole, I tru­ly enjoyed this book, and its sweet, touch­ing moments (of which there are many) eas­i­ly out­shone the dark­ness of Amy’s past as it leaks into her cur­rent sit­u­a­tion.  Just as Amy strives to uncov­er hap­pi­ness despite it all, the read­er is able to cher­ish sweet moments—between Amy and Ben­jamin, Amy and Ben­jamin, Ben­jamin and his sis­ter, and even Amy and her guardians—to find a tru­ly love­ly novel.

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About the Author

Char­lotte devel­oped seri­ous crush­es on a series of men from age fif­teen: Dar­cy, Knight­ley, Went­worth and Bran­don. A book­worm and scrib­bler for as long as she can remem­ber, Char­lotte always dreamed of shar­ing her sto­ries with the world.

Earn­ing a degree in com­mu­ni­ca­tion stud­ies, she was seduced by the emerg­ing dig­i­tal world and has since worked with the inter­net and in mar­ket­ing. She lives with her hus­band in beau­ti­ful Auck­land, New Zealand.

Now moth­er to an adorable human tor­na­do, Char­lotte is try­ing to find the time for read­ing, sea­side walks, war­bling at the piano and quaffing far too many hot chocolates.

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