Look Before You Leap by Virginia Heath

 💖💖💖💖💖/5

Look Before You Leap by Virginia Heath, book two in the Miss Prentice’s Protégées series, is an opposites attract, enemies to lovers dynamic, with Lottie and Guy being at odds from the beginning. Lottie is a farm girl turned disgraced governess protégé of Miss Prentice. She can’t seem to stay in any position for very long; often because of borrowing a horse from her employer, to ride like the wind. Her wages help keep her family’s farm afloat, so she is eagerly to find another position. She is given the chance to a lady's companion to a woman, known to be notoriously difficult. Soon she learns that the lady happens to be the aunt of a man she nearly ran over while borrowing a horse in a most unladylike fashion.

 

The job takes her to her employer’s sister house where Lottie learns Guy is her nephew. The two both clash and come together as his aunt and mother embark on a matchmaking scheme disguised as a surprise party full of eligible debutantes. Lottie finds Guy irritating at first, but warms up to him as they interact during the visit. An added subplot is the plight of her father and brothers back on the farm, where blight has ruined another crop.

 

The chemistry and attraction was off the charts. I enjoyed their morning rides, sharing deep conversations, slow respect and a genuine liking and friendship. Finally Lottie met a man who admired her talent with horses and training them. The class mismatch served as a key conflict. As an aristocrat, Guy can’t understand why Lottie didn’t warn him of something her employer was planning that would upset him. He couldn’t conceive that her duty and loyalty was to her employer, and her need for money to support her family would override her feelings for him. This is a romp with some wonderfully funny parts, but also has some nice social commentary as a result. I can’t wait to see which protégé is next.

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