The Captivating Lady Charlotte by Carolyn Miller

Choosing To Praise

The Captivating Lady Charlotte by Carolyn Miller is a delightful Christian romance. It is the second book in the Regency Brides series and I absolutely loved it. It can be read as a stand-alone but I enjoyed catching up with familiar characters. The book is a blend of Jane Austen meeting Daphne Du Maurier with a fabulous plotline, wonderful characters and compulsive action – including duels, liaisons, love triangles, class snobbery, jealousy, adventures – a perfect mix to capture the reader’s attention and imagination.

The leading characters are unique. Both having their strong traits interwoven with insecurities. Life in 1814 demanded social conformity. The hero and heroine defied conventions, being forward thinkers with hearts for the poor and marginalised. The hero was a forward thinker embracing new ideas in agriculture and road building.

God is at the heart of the novel. Events may mean we lose sight of God at times. “He couldn’t pray… wasn’t even sure if God was real anymore.” God never loses sight of us, waiting for us to return to Him. “God? Silence.” Do not mistake silence for absence, it isn’t. Characters need to know they can trust God at all times.

There are the difficult topics of infant and maternal mortality. Life was fragile in the early nineteenth century. Characters strong in their faith, force themselves to lift their eyes from their circumstances to God. “Praise… is a choice.” When we choose to focus on God, He can and will get us through the storms of life. We need to “exchange worries for prayers.”

God’s grace covers each and every one of us. We do not deserve it. We did not earn it but we all receive it. We too, need to dispense grace and forgiveness to all, whether we think they deserve it or not.

Priorities were another theme. Far too many people of the upper classes were concerned with wealth, titles and making good marriages propelling the family up the social ladder. It was refreshing to meet characters who focused on people and whose motive for marriage was love.

The reader is in for a real treat with the novel being set in both London and the countryside. We meet a wealth of different people and are party to some wonderful natural locations where it is easy to see God’s handiwork.

I am excited by this Regency Brides series. The stories are wonderful and warm. Carolyn Miller is a new author and I am so pleased to have ‘discovered’ her at the start of what I hope will be a very long career.

An absolutely delightful series. I am on to book three now.

I received this book for free. A favourable review was not required and all views expressed are my own.

JULIA WILSON

 

 

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