What do you think?
Rate this book
Inherit Your Love
The black sheep wasn't about to turn white
And that was why Laura didn't relish the idea of telling Alex Gillon he was about to become the Earl of Exonby--and the owner of a Gloucestershire estate.
She liked it even less once she'd met handsome, hard-talking Alex--now a successful businessman in New Mexico. He'd fled England years ago, wanting no part of the title or his family's estate. And he definitely didn't plan to return.
The instant electric attraction that sizzled between them brought conflicts--for Laura believed Alex should forget his bitter past and accept his birthright. Even if that meant sacrificing their love.
And that was why Laura didn't relish the idea of telling Alex Gillon he was about to become the Earl of Exonby--and the owner of a Gloucestershire estate.
She liked it even less once she'd met handsome, hard-talking Alex--now a successful businessman in New Mexico. He'd fled England years ago, wanting no part of the title or his family's estate. And he definitely didn't plan to return.
The instant electric attraction that sizzled between them brought conflicts--for Laura believed Alex should forget his bitter past and accept his birthright. Even if that meant sacrificing their love.
- GenresHarlequin Presents
192 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1990
About the author
Sally Cook
69 books4 followersaka Susan Curran
Susan Griffin was born on 14 May 1952 in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England, daugther of Maureen McGinnity and Norman Griffin. She obtained a Bachelor in English at University Sussex on 1973. On 1976, she married Tim Curran, and they divorced on 1980. On 1980, she remarried Ray Curnow, and they divorced on 1988. On 1997, she remarried Paul Frederick Simmonds, and they live between in central Norwich, England and in the Loire valley, France. She has two children: Rufus and Evan.
She is a professional writer since 1979, and has since written or co-written more than 30 published books, including a wide range of non-fiction books and novels for Collins and Constable, she also wrote under the pseudonym of Sally Cook for Mills & Boon. She researches the life of real people to her novels, and now also to write biographies. During the course of her researches she visited many of the places in both England and France.
In the 1990s Susan set up with a group of writer friends and ran a small fiction publisher, Rampant Horse. Since 1997 she has run Curran Publishing Services Ltd, www.curranpublishing.com, which specializes in preparing mostly non-fiction books for press under subcontract from major publishers. In this capacity she has copy edited, typeset and indexed hundreds of books. For eight years until 2009, CPS had its offices in a redundant medieval church in Norwich, St Mary Coslany. Susan has been also a trustee of the Norwich Historic Churches Trust, which oversees many of Norwich’s redundant churches, since the early 1990s.
Susan Griffin was born on 14 May 1952 in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England, daugther of Maureen McGinnity and Norman Griffin. She obtained a Bachelor in English at University Sussex on 1973. On 1976, she married Tim Curran, and they divorced on 1980. On 1980, she remarried Ray Curnow, and they divorced on 1988. On 1997, she remarried Paul Frederick Simmonds, and they live between in central Norwich, England and in the Loire valley, France. She has two children: Rufus and Evan.
She is a professional writer since 1979, and has since written or co-written more than 30 published books, including a wide range of non-fiction books and novels for Collins and Constable, she also wrote under the pseudonym of Sally Cook for Mills & Boon. She researches the life of real people to her novels, and now also to write biographies. During the course of her researches she visited many of the places in both England and France.
In the 1990s Susan set up with a group of writer friends and ran a small fiction publisher, Rampant Horse. Since 1997 she has run Curran Publishing Services Ltd, www.curranpublishing.com, which specializes in preparing mostly non-fiction books for press under subcontract from major publishers. In this capacity she has copy edited, typeset and indexed hundreds of books. For eight years until 2009, CPS had its offices in a redundant medieval church in Norwich, St Mary Coslany. Susan has been also a trustee of the Norwich Historic Churches Trust, which oversees many of Norwich’s redundant churches, since the early 1990s.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 17, 2017
Re Inherit Your Love - Sally Cook's penultimate HP outing is her usual tropes of engaged h meets H and there is drama and attraction, then they separate and then get back together for the HEA.
This one only differs in that the H in question is the heir to an English Earldom and it's accompanying estate. However due to his mother being a chambermaid and marrying the current Earl's brother when she got pregnant with the H and then divorcing the man amidst great scandal and the H as a child being a bit of a rapscallion, the H rejected England and all it stood for at the age of 19 and took himself off to America.
The h is the titled daughter of aristocrats herself, and since she is styled Lady Laura, I am assuming her father is an Earl or higher himself - tho it isn't mentioned what rank he holds in the English peerage. She is engaged to another local farmer nobleman and currently works as a secretary to the H's Countess aunt.
The Countess and the Earl want the h to go to New Mexico to convince the H that he needs to come back to England and take his rightful place as the new Earl. The current Earl is very old and ill and his time is short. The Countess believes the H is some kind of mechanic, she doesn't have any current information on him, but his father is dead, his mother and sister haven't spoken to him in twenty years and the only contact the Earl and Countess have had is brief letters refusing any inheritance or the title.
This rejection outrages the elderly couple as the estate and title are supposedly entailed and can't be broken. (Which is wrong BTW.) They want the h to go over there and drag the H back. The h is a bit wary, her own fiance claims the H was a total loss at public school when it came to schoolwork and that he was only good at games. The h can't imagine how an illiterate garage mechanic will handle an Earldom, but she agrees to go.
So we are off to New Mexico and I hate to say this, but it is obvious Sally Cook has never been there. She seems to think New Mexico is like the Deep South and she apparently never looked at a map when she was writing her story out. She has the h drive 150 miles east from Albuquerque and she claims they are in a town by the Texas border yet only 30 miles from Carlsbad Caverns. If the h goes east, h is actually in Tucumcari and about 250 miles from Carlsbad Caverns. ( I know cause I lived on a ranch around there in my younger years and New Mexico is NOTHING like the Deep South.)
The 30 mile location puts the H at Artesia NM, which is just south of Roswell, 100 miles from the Texas border and a really, really tiny town with a population of about 12000 people. (I know a hundred miles isn't that far, but this h was hyperventilating at the distance of thirty miles, so it was weird.) The biggest thing in Artesia is an oil refinery that is really stinky and there just isn't a whole lot of anything else besides a great high school football team and yet SC makes this tiny town the headquarters of the H's huge garage and car rental business that covers three states.
Now I am not saying it couldn't happen that way, but when the h arrives and tries to meet the H at his business headquarters, he refuses to see her. She has heard via town gossips in the hotel that there is a big hugely elegant charity ball going on in her hotel that night and that the H is a guest speaker. So she uses her English title and the statement that she has met Princess Diana and the Queen to get herself invited in the hopes of meeting the H.
A big charity event in Artesia is usually a outdoor pit barbecue or a rodeo, so I was kinda doubting things here. (Which is a problem when writers write about areas that people are familiar with and yet haven't been there themselves, it smacks of inauthenticity and kinda messes up the story.)
She goes to the huge crush of the ball, (maybe they got people from Roswell,) and the people are friendly and the H has to rescue her from a guy who is bit too handsy. The H is very hostile to the idear of returning to England or taking the title and they arrange to meet the next day so the h can get her side in. The h is surprised to find that she is attracted to the H, but when they meet again the H is very adamant that if he inherits the title and the estate, he will renounce the title, tear down the house and partition out the estate and the h is appalled.
She just can't conceive of anyone not liking the aristocratic English life style and the whole thing becomes a class struggle, to the point where SC has the H sound like a glorified hayseed and the h is the epitome of upper English aristo snobbism. The H claims that the aristocracy is useless, as evidence he points to the fact that the h herself has an honours in English Law and yet is only a part time secretary to friends of her parent's while waiting around to get married to another titled snob.
(SC went all out to make a pointed social class distinction and it wasn't very appealing, particularly because she uses the H's speech patterns to do it and it made no sense. He might have lost the accent, but he did go to an English public school, so he knows the correct forms for speaking English and her use of phraseology that was more reminiscent of a turn of the century share cropper in Alabama was entirely too jolting, people in New Mexico or Arizona don't talk that way.)
There are a few roofie kisses and the h takes a little trip to Carlsbad Caverns and sees the bats all leaving at sunset, so we get a little travelogue - tho the Caverns are pretty cool, so that was interesting. When the h gets back from her outing, she gets word that the old Earl has died and the H is now the new Earl. She lets the H know, but he has a business trip so he is getting ready to leave. He assumes the h is going to stay around, but she needs to get back to help the Dowager Countess, so we all go back to Gloucestershire.
There is a funeral and we meet the H's mother and sister, tho the H himself doesn't show up and people are gossiping about how down market the mother and sister are. The h tries to make conversation and asks the H's sister about her shopkeeper husband, only to find out that the guy is a chartered accountant and the Dowager got the whole thing patronizingly wrong. The h and the DC invite them back to the estate but they decline, which was good cause the H has arrived at the family pile after his flight got delayed and he couldn't make the funeral. The Dowager Countess is determined to get the H into the social and managerial swing of the "proper way" to do things and so the H and h start working together to get the estate sorted out.
The h is by now in love with the H, tho there isn't much personal romantic interaction between them and the h wonders if the H is holding back cause she is still engaged. The h has the usual SC doubts about her fiance and the fiance does the usual controlling obnoxious SC soon to be dumped fiance moves, which includes being really horrible to the H over a formal dinner that the Dowager Countess arranged to have the local aristocrats meet the new Earl. The h is the hostess for the H and it soon becomes apparent that the H isn't really comfortable and isn't really fitting in and the h thinks that he only needs time and she will dump her current fiance and hook the H and then go on to be the new Countess. (This h comes across as a bit snobbish and mercenary and while I did not totally dislike her, I wasn't really happy with her either.)
The h tells the H she is breaking up with her fiance and they both declare that they love each other. The h thinks that means that the H's plans for the estate to be dismantled and sold off will be put into abeyance and that she and the H will take their places as the new Earl and his Countess, but the H has no intention of changing his plans. If he can't tear the house down, he will convert it to apartments and he already disposed of most of the lands. He tells the h if she loves him, she will have to dump her life in England and move to New Mexico with him as he is leaving England for good the next day, and the h has to make a choice.
There is a big time jump and it is a year later. We find out the h did NOT go with the H, instead she stayed and took over the conversion of the big house to apartments when the H couldn't get permission to tear the house down. The h figures she will never see the H again and he renounced his title, but she couldn't go with him when he demanded it cause it was all to shocking for her on top of dumping her fiance and everything.
Then the H returns and the h does her best to avoid him until she sees her secretary flirting with him. She still loves him and has been pining and is now green eyed and livid. So when the two of them meet in a dovecote where they are escaping a big rainstorm, the h declares her love and the H tells her he will move back to England if she will marry him cause he loves her too. The h is touched, but decides to go back to the States with the H and do business things over there and the two are reunited and lurving it up for big HEA.
This one was okay, but boring. There was actually very little romance or relationship building and the H's reasons for cutting off his family were never explained. The h spends almost the entire book thinking about how wonderful the H's ancestral estate is and how great it would be to be his Countess and the heavy aura of the h only really wanting the H for his title and his lands was never fully dispersed, even at the HEA end. The whole thing felt like a misplaced Regency that got lost in time.
I thought the h was a bit snobby too and the whole class difference thing was so stereotyped that I was offended on EVERYBODY's behalf. Overall the whole thing was very lacklustre and this one can be safely skipped in pursuit of a more entertaining HPlandia outing.
This one only differs in that the H in question is the heir to an English Earldom and it's accompanying estate. However due to his mother being a chambermaid and marrying the current Earl's brother when she got pregnant with the H and then divorcing the man amidst great scandal and the H as a child being a bit of a rapscallion, the H rejected England and all it stood for at the age of 19 and took himself off to America.
The h is the titled daughter of aristocrats herself, and since she is styled Lady Laura, I am assuming her father is an Earl or higher himself - tho it isn't mentioned what rank he holds in the English peerage. She is engaged to another local farmer nobleman and currently works as a secretary to the H's Countess aunt.
The Countess and the Earl want the h to go to New Mexico to convince the H that he needs to come back to England and take his rightful place as the new Earl. The current Earl is very old and ill and his time is short. The Countess believes the H is some kind of mechanic, she doesn't have any current information on him, but his father is dead, his mother and sister haven't spoken to him in twenty years and the only contact the Earl and Countess have had is brief letters refusing any inheritance or the title.
This rejection outrages the elderly couple as the estate and title are supposedly entailed and can't be broken. (Which is wrong BTW.) They want the h to go over there and drag the H back. The h is a bit wary, her own fiance claims the H was a total loss at public school when it came to schoolwork and that he was only good at games. The h can't imagine how an illiterate garage mechanic will handle an Earldom, but she agrees to go.
So we are off to New Mexico and I hate to say this, but it is obvious Sally Cook has never been there. She seems to think New Mexico is like the Deep South and she apparently never looked at a map when she was writing her story out. She has the h drive 150 miles east from Albuquerque and she claims they are in a town by the Texas border yet only 30 miles from Carlsbad Caverns. If the h goes east, h is actually in Tucumcari and about 250 miles from Carlsbad Caverns. ( I know cause I lived on a ranch around there in my younger years and New Mexico is NOTHING like the Deep South.)
The 30 mile location puts the H at Artesia NM, which is just south of Roswell, 100 miles from the Texas border and a really, really tiny town with a population of about 12000 people. (I know a hundred miles isn't that far, but this h was hyperventilating at the distance of thirty miles, so it was weird.) The biggest thing in Artesia is an oil refinery that is really stinky and there just isn't a whole lot of anything else besides a great high school football team and yet SC makes this tiny town the headquarters of the H's huge garage and car rental business that covers three states.
Now I am not saying it couldn't happen that way, but when the h arrives and tries to meet the H at his business headquarters, he refuses to see her. She has heard via town gossips in the hotel that there is a big hugely elegant charity ball going on in her hotel that night and that the H is a guest speaker. So she uses her English title and the statement that she has met Princess Diana and the Queen to get herself invited in the hopes of meeting the H.
A big charity event in Artesia is usually a outdoor pit barbecue or a rodeo, so I was kinda doubting things here. (Which is a problem when writers write about areas that people are familiar with and yet haven't been there themselves, it smacks of inauthenticity and kinda messes up the story.)
She goes to the huge crush of the ball, (maybe they got people from Roswell,) and the people are friendly and the H has to rescue her from a guy who is bit too handsy. The H is very hostile to the idear of returning to England or taking the title and they arrange to meet the next day so the h can get her side in. The h is surprised to find that she is attracted to the H, but when they meet again the H is very adamant that if he inherits the title and the estate, he will renounce the title, tear down the house and partition out the estate and the h is appalled.
She just can't conceive of anyone not liking the aristocratic English life style and the whole thing becomes a class struggle, to the point where SC has the H sound like a glorified hayseed and the h is the epitome of upper English aristo snobbism. The H claims that the aristocracy is useless, as evidence he points to the fact that the h herself has an honours in English Law and yet is only a part time secretary to friends of her parent's while waiting around to get married to another titled snob.
(SC went all out to make a pointed social class distinction and it wasn't very appealing, particularly because she uses the H's speech patterns to do it and it made no sense. He might have lost the accent, but he did go to an English public school, so he knows the correct forms for speaking English and her use of phraseology that was more reminiscent of a turn of the century share cropper in Alabama was entirely too jolting, people in New Mexico or Arizona don't talk that way.)
There are a few roofie kisses and the h takes a little trip to Carlsbad Caverns and sees the bats all leaving at sunset, so we get a little travelogue - tho the Caverns are pretty cool, so that was interesting. When the h gets back from her outing, she gets word that the old Earl has died and the H is now the new Earl. She lets the H know, but he has a business trip so he is getting ready to leave. He assumes the h is going to stay around, but she needs to get back to help the Dowager Countess, so we all go back to Gloucestershire.
There is a funeral and we meet the H's mother and sister, tho the H himself doesn't show up and people are gossiping about how down market the mother and sister are. The h tries to make conversation and asks the H's sister about her shopkeeper husband, only to find out that the guy is a chartered accountant and the Dowager got the whole thing patronizingly wrong. The h and the DC invite them back to the estate but they decline, which was good cause the H has arrived at the family pile after his flight got delayed and he couldn't make the funeral. The Dowager Countess is determined to get the H into the social and managerial swing of the "proper way" to do things and so the H and h start working together to get the estate sorted out.
The h is by now in love with the H, tho there isn't much personal romantic interaction between them and the h wonders if the H is holding back cause she is still engaged. The h has the usual SC doubts about her fiance and the fiance does the usual controlling obnoxious SC soon to be dumped fiance moves, which includes being really horrible to the H over a formal dinner that the Dowager Countess arranged to have the local aristocrats meet the new Earl. The h is the hostess for the H and it soon becomes apparent that the H isn't really comfortable and isn't really fitting in and the h thinks that he only needs time and she will dump her current fiance and hook the H and then go on to be the new Countess. (This h comes across as a bit snobbish and mercenary and while I did not totally dislike her, I wasn't really happy with her either.)
The h tells the H she is breaking up with her fiance and they both declare that they love each other. The h thinks that means that the H's plans for the estate to be dismantled and sold off will be put into abeyance and that she and the H will take their places as the new Earl and his Countess, but the H has no intention of changing his plans. If he can't tear the house down, he will convert it to apartments and he already disposed of most of the lands. He tells the h if she loves him, she will have to dump her life in England and move to New Mexico with him as he is leaving England for good the next day, and the h has to make a choice.
There is a big time jump and it is a year later. We find out the h did NOT go with the H, instead she stayed and took over the conversion of the big house to apartments when the H couldn't get permission to tear the house down. The h figures she will never see the H again and he renounced his title, but she couldn't go with him when he demanded it cause it was all to shocking for her on top of dumping her fiance and everything.
Then the H returns and the h does her best to avoid him until she sees her secretary flirting with him. She still loves him and has been pining and is now green eyed and livid. So when the two of them meet in a dovecote where they are escaping a big rainstorm, the h declares her love and the H tells her he will move back to England if she will marry him cause he loves her too. The h is touched, but decides to go back to the States with the H and do business things over there and the two are reunited and lurving it up for big HEA.
This one was okay, but boring. There was actually very little romance or relationship building and the H's reasons for cutting off his family were never explained. The h spends almost the entire book thinking about how wonderful the H's ancestral estate is and how great it would be to be his Countess and the heavy aura of the h only really wanting the H for his title and his lands was never fully dispersed, even at the HEA end. The whole thing felt like a misplaced Regency that got lost in time.
I thought the h was a bit snobby too and the whole class difference thing was so stereotyped that I was offended on EVERYBODY's behalf. Overall the whole thing was very lacklustre and this one can be safely skipped in pursuit of a more entertaining HPlandia outing.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 of 1 review