Review: To Catch A Husband by Sophia Holloway (2024)

I loved everything about this book. It felt like a much older book, one written perhaps twenty or thirty years ago, and I mean that as a very sincere compliment. Lately, I’ve almost despaired of modern Regencies, where the characters behave in modern ways with very modern sensibilities and sometimes even modern language. Sophia Holloway is one of the very few who avoids all these pitfalls.

Here’s the premise: Miss Mary Lound is twenty-five, and a spinster, being happier outdoors than in drawing rooms or ballrooms. That’s never bothered her, but now she’s in a difficult position. Her father’s debts and her brother’s unwillingness to try to repay them means that her beloved home of Tapley End has been sold, and she and her scatterbrained mother are living in near destitution in the Dower House. But the new owner, Sir Rowland Kempsey, is a pleasant man of thirty or so, and if she could catch him, Mary would be free of the threat of starvation, and mistress of Tapley End. It was worth a try…

Trouble is, Mary’s never tried to attract a man before, and she has no idea how to do it. Her early attempts are not very successful, and only serve to deter her target. If only she knew that he was attracted to open, honest and straightforward Mary just as she was. Meanwhile, her neighbour and almost-like-a-brother Sir Harry Penwood is sighing over the beautiful Madeleine Banham, and finding his own courtship troubled by smooth-talking and rakish Lord Cradley. This is the heart of the book – how exactly does one catch a husband? The beautiful Madeleine would like a gentleman who sees more to her than the exquisite exterior, while Mary would just like a man who sees her, and doesn’t veer away the instant the lovely Miss Banham appears.

This is not a particularly complex book, either in romance terms or in the plot. After a series of missteps, Mary and Sir Rowland manage to reach an accommodation that allows them to drift towards love, and Lord Cradley is seen off by his own misdeeds. Not much happens, in other words, but that doesn’t matter a bit. These characters are so real and so likeable that I was rooting for them all the way. Even the side characters, like Sir Rowland’s younger brother, Madeleine’s parents and the butterfly-minded Lady Damerham, are delightful. There was a certain amount of coincidence in how things worked out towards the end, but not so much as to be implausible.

As far as the writing goes, absolutely nothing tripped me up, not a single anachronism or Americanism, although I would have liked it if the author had used the word ‘nice’ less often. Such a bland word, surely she could have found something more interesting? Otherwise, the whole book is perfection, and I highly recommend it. Five stars.