This was a very hard book for me to judge. The story was less than compelling, the characters failed to engage my sympathy, and there was a huge red herring thrown into the mix. And yet…some of the writing was so well done that it kept me going, and I had to feel sorry it was wasted on this particular tale.

Hannah Whitechurch and her two sisters live in Solitude – literally and figuratively. That’s the name of the cottage they own, on the outskirts of a small village in the English countryside. Their parents are dead, and Hannah earns barely enough to keep them alive by drawing illustrations for greeting cards and books. That source of income is drying up, though, and Hannah’s getting desperate for funds – but not desperate enough that she’ll consider the recent, mysterious offers to buy her house.

Beau St. James is a wealthy London widower with a reckless teenage daughter. When she’s caught in a compromising position, Beau is approached by the man who found her, Sir John Rapsville, with an unusual offer: Sir John will keep quiet about Katherine’s behavior, if Beau will help him acquire Solitude, which is on land that abuts Beau’s country estate. Since his daughter’s reputation means everything to him, Beau reluctantly agrees, but he finds that Hannah’s a stubborn woman. Intrigued by her, admiring her strength and pride, he falls in love with her, and she with him. When he proposes, Hannah never dreams that Beau would have an ulterior motive for marrying her, and she agrees. It’s only after the wedding, and an idyllic honeymoon, that she finds out he’s sold the cottage. And it’s only then that Beau figures out just why Sir John is so interested in it in the first place.

Talk about your Big Secrets! Hannah has what she considers very good reason to resist Beau, but it’s nothing more than fear of her own sexuality. It was difficult for me to warm up to her, and I never understood her intransigence at selling Solitude when she and her sisters were on the verge of starvation. As for Beau, while I could sympathize with his dilemma, his reason for courting Hannah in the first place struck me as underhanded and dishonest, and I found myself cheering at his well-deserved misery later in the story. That’s hardly the reaction one anticipates toward a romance hero.

The secondary characters are little more than caricatures. Hannah has a spoiled, whiny sister and a saintly, dreamy sister, who reminded me of Amy and Beth from Little Women. Beau’s daughter is a wild, out-of-control young woman whose awareness of her sexuality is a threat to the stability of his household. And Sir John might as well have been drawn twirling his moustaches a la Snidely Whiplash – the epitome of slime and selfishness. Then there’s the inclusion of Liam Colcannon, an Irish drifter who leeches on to the Whitechurch girls and tries to seduce Hannah. I presume his purpose was to act as a foil to Beau and underline to Hannah the difference between friendship and love. The author, however, spent an inordinate amount of time on him, and in the end did nothing significant with his character.

So, having read all this, you’d think I loathed the book, right? Not entirely. Ms. Satinwood has a way with words; she’s a good writer, one who shows promise. Sometimes the prose was all that kept me going, and in certain parts its strength overrode the weakness of the plot and the irritating behavior of her characters. There’s a bittersweet, poetic quality to her writing, which appealed greatly to me. I’ve been able to find very little information about her, which leads me to believe she’s new to the scene. Even though I didn’t fall in love with this book, I’m keeping an eye out for her next one, in the hope that she’s able to develop the raw skill she displays here.