A few pages into Miss Lockharte’s Letters, I was convinced I had found a keeper of the multiple hanky kind. Rosellen Lockharte’s situation is so bleak it brought tears to my eyes, and I’m not the sentimental sort. But once things took a turn for the better for Rosellen, the book descended into a Regency romp that was nothing out of the ordinary.

Rosellen has come down in the world. A vicar’s daughter and a baron’s niece, she is now an underpaid penmanship teacher dying of influenza. With her last bit of strength, she writes letters of forgiveness to all the people who, consciously or not, have caused her current situation. Some of the letters set people from her past running to her rescue, others provoke her employers, the Merrihews, to attempt to dispose of her.

Wynn, Viscount Stanford, is the brother of Rosellen’s friend and former student, Susan. Partially due to her letters, Wynn removes Rosellen to live in London under his protection. As a hero, Wynn is a bit high-handed, but he has good reasons for not believing a feverish, possibly concussed stranger. After various subplots, including the theft of some of the toy soldiers Wynn created for smuggling military messages, the villains are successfully removed from the scene, leaving our couple free for a happy future.

Miss Lockharte’s Letters charmed me with its use of language. Words were well chosen and the rhythm smooth. Something that contributed to this was the clever use of alliterations, seemingly at random. There is a lot of darkly absurd humor, much of which is based upon the unexpected consequences of Rosellen’s letters.

There is a supporting cast in any good romance, but the most memorable pair I’ve ever encountered is Hurly and Burly, otherwise known as the Heatherstone twins. They are delightfully stupid but mostly well meaning, and they contribute to several absurd incidents. Rosellen likely regretted writing the words, “…and I never had a dog.”

There was one plot device that I found irksome. Rosellen’s cousin, Clarice, turns up her nose at an available duke, as she is set on marrying Wynn. Since a duke outranks a viscount, this doesn’t make sense when Clarice is described to be as mercenary as she is mean-spirited.

The first half of this book was pure A-, the second a half-cooked C. Somehow, the book read like two stories diametrically different in flavor that had been fused together without the benefit of precision craftsmanship. There is nothing wrong with a light romp, and this one was quite acceptable, but its charm paled when forced to succeed the emotionally intense first half.

In the end I asked myself, would I recommend this book unconditionally? The answer was a resounding No! But having said that, I freely admit to having re-read the first half two times already and I have put Ms. Metzger on my semi-glom list.

Miss Lockharte’s Letters is not a bad book. I cannot say otherwise that it is an acceptable read overall, but the grade would have been far higher if Ms. Metzger had made up her mind about what kind of story she intended to tell.