Sheri Cobb South: Of Paupers and Peers

Of Paupers and Peers: A
Margaret Darrington & James Weatherly


This book looked lonesome on the shelf of my beloved library. It was a thin, short novel but a small tag said that it was a romance.

Romance?
I do love romance!

And so I decided to give this lonely book a try.

It was a lovely decision.

James Weatherly is a tall, lanky, and kind grammar tutor for his small village. Unknown to him, almost a century ago, a Duke disowned his son for falling in love with a maid. The son was erased from the family and life went on.

Surprisingly, James receives a visit from the solicitors and is told that his great-great-great-great-(however many greats there are) grandfather disowned his son who was a direct ancestor of James. And since all other living descendants of the dukedom were goners, James became the new Duke!

Exciting, right?
Except on the way to his estate, James has an incident with footpads and is left for dead. He is awoken by practical Margaret Darrington, who incidentally, assumes he is the tutor for her younger brother. Since James has amnesia and cannot remember who he is, he too assumes he is the tutor for the Darrington family.

And so goes the love story of James and Margaret. It is a misplaced love at first, since he believes himself to believe to be in love with Margaret's beautiful younger sister, Amanda. But he begins to see the wonderfulness of Margaret (as all good heroes come to this very necessary realization) despite her unconventional looks (not quite beautiful, but striking in her own manner).


Though this story is short, it's beautifully written. Very Jane Austen-esque. The language and dialect of the characters is one I would believe the long-ago British to have spoken and it is very witty (again, very Jane Austen-esque).

A definite recommend!

(I'm looking to glom her backlist of novels. Ooooooh, yes!)