Ordinary Girl, Society Groom

by Natasha Oakley

The wedding of the year!

Eloise Lawton has finally found the family she's never known. But now she's cast adrift in the high-society world where there's only one person Eloise can depend on: broodingly handsome Jeremy Norland.

As family loyalties and secrets unravel, Eloise realizes that if she falls in love with Jeremy she's in danger of losing everything she's fought so hard to find. Will Eloise have the courage to risk it all?

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

I was born in an 'old' English county called Middlesex. You won't find it on any modern map - it's been swallowed up by Greater London and at the swish of a bureaucratic pen it disappeared. Nevertheless, I had a perfectly happy childhood there with two parents who love me and a younger brother I still like! Painfully shy, books were my passion and my first career ambition was to be an author -- mainly, I think, because I didn't fancy leaving home.

Everyone seems to have one teacher who's inspired them more than any other. I met mine when I was thirteen and his name was Frank Richards, our drama teacher. He introduced me to theatre and at fourteen I walked on stage for the first time in a play he'd written. It was the beginning of a new passion.

After a three-year classical theatre training at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London, I started my career in professional theatre under my Equity name of Jessica Dean.

In 1991 I married my husband and we decided to start our family. I must have harboured some kind of daft idea that I would have a baby, put it in a papoose and carry on pretty much as before. Not surprisingly it didn't quite work out that way. I hadn't realised quite how powerful mother-love is. I had five children in six years, working only very briefly during this time.

I'm blessed with an easy, happy marriage and five great children, but when illness touched our lives I started to reassess my future. It was the start of my writing career. My second submission to Mills & Boon was accepted in December 2003.

I now live in Bedfordshire with my husband and my children. I love antique fairs, collect kitchenalia, paint in watercolour, and am a signer for the deaf (BSL). My house is in a constant state of disarray but I make great cakes, write books and no one seems to mind.

Reviews

[E Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just gorgeous. A lovely romance - beautiful and beautifully written too.

It makes me want to read more of Natasha Oakley's work.

I just wish it had been a little bit longer but I appreciate that that's often down to the publisher not the writer.

[More Books Than Time · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ending was rushed and I didn’t believe it.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 Stars! ~ For the first 21 years of Eloise Lawton's life, it had only been her and her mom. She got the call while at university that her mother was killed in an auto accident. Not able to cope with her loss, Eloise had put her mother's possessions into storage, and then she set out to make a name for herself as a fashion journalist. Now after six years, Eloise is ready to deal with things and she rediscovers the letter that names who her father is, the man who had rejected her mother because he was already married. Feeling very bitter, Eloise writes to him and asks if he wishes to meet his other daughter. She wants more than anything to tell him exactly how hard her mother's life had been, while he and his "real" family had carried on with their life of privilege. Jem Norland isn't sure what Eloise wants, but her claim is preposterous. His stepfather is an honourable man and would never have cheated on his first wife, let alone abandon his child, and his child's mother. But when he confronts Eloise, he realizes there's a world of hurt in her and that she actually believes her mother's letter. He's conflicted by his loyalty to his stepfather and his growing need to protect Eloise.

This is one of those emotional love stories that pulls hard on the strings of the heart. Though Eloise is at first consumed with her own pain, she realizes that in writing to her father, she's brought immense pain to his family. She's an amazing heroine and one easy to route for. Jem is a strong hero, who wants more than anything to shield those he loves from being hurt. That Eloise falls in that category takes him by surprise. There are alot of emotional twists and turns to this story that make the HEA hard won but wonderfully satisfying.

[Nell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an enjoyable read from Natasha Oakley, one of my favourite authors. Missed out on the five stars as the heroine was slightly annoying as she cries far too much.

[Nanooka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sigh worthy HEA :)