A Family for Gillian

Wonderful and touching. I loved how we dropped right in the middle-just one week before "ruined" Gillian is to wed Prescott. Every person is well portrayed, warts and all. The children act real and "not perfect," though near the end, the three year old seems too advanced. Prescott is reserved but only "just so," while still having an adult relationship with his wife. They have lively quarrels. Everyone acts mature, still having fun but not silly as in many Regencies. The extended family members, such as the overbearing mother and sister-in-law, add a superb dimension! For laughs, wait until you read the Christmas pudding scene! A "not-to-miss" enjoyable read.

Ms Blair's latest work "A Family for Gillian" is truly her best yet! She beautifully develops the personalities of the children and their complex interactions with Gillian. Blair's characters' dialogues- which are always outstanding -are magnificent in this work. The book has some surprises too.

Catherine Blair has really grown as an author - I read all her stuff because she has a real sense of humor about her heroines; they aren't just fluttering gamine nellies but people I can really identify with. After a while of reading other romances, the foregone formula of a wedding on the last page can destroy the tension - A Family for Gillian is really different, but still maintains a tight sense of romantic (even sexual) tension between the lovers. Initially I thought having children in the story would slow it down but not at all! They added lovely poignancy in their relationship as well as natural humor. I enjoyed this book best of all of Ms. Blair's!

This Regency Romance is refreshing in that it is set in rural Ireland, as apposed to the more usual Bath or London, and Catherine Blair does a wonderful job of portraying country life in Regency Ireland without resorting to sterotype. Even without the benefit of an interesting setting, it is a wonderful story. The characters are very real and refuse to adhere to the common character-types that can be found in lesser works. This is Blair's best work by far. The children in the story are cute, but not too cute and the developing romance between Prescott and Gillian grows very naturally. This book is definitely a keeper and I am already eagerly awaiting Catherine's next novel!!!!

If you think that "A Family For Gillian" by Catherine Blair is the usual run of the mill Regency romance novel in which a badly scarred widower marries again for the sake of his children, and where the new wife spends all her time trying to live up to the memory of the near perfect first wife, and where the dead first wife is finally proved to be a real shrew, think again. "A Family For Gillian" is unique in that while Viscount Prescott Avery does indeed marry again in order to provide his three children with a mother, and the romance novel does focus on Gillian's attempts to be good mother to the children and a helpmate to her husband, the whole 'the-first-wife-was-a-real-witch' motif is refreshingly absent. Gillian Hartwell has decided that the mother's idea of the 'right' husband and her own are vastly different. And so she sets out to ruin herself (a little) socially. Unfortunately, her plan works only all too well, and she is completely ruined. And so Gillian has little choice but to accept the marriage proposal that Viscount Prescott Avery makes via a letter. His loneliness and his obvious need of a wife and mother moves Gillian, and she hopefully sets off for Ireland to start her new life. Unfortunately (again) there were several things that Avery left out in his letter -- the fact that he was very much in love with his wife, has yet to get over her death, and that he has no immediate intention of consummating the marriage; and that his children are incredibly hostile to the notion of their father marrying again. Definitely, Gillian has her work cut out for her. But with patience, kindness and compassion, Gillian sets out to win the hearts of her new family. It proves to be hard going, but she has hopes of succeeding with the children at least. Now, if she can only convince their father that he needs her tender care as well...The novel takes place over the space of a year; and the pacing of the novel is as careful and as restrained as is Gillian's handling of her highly fractious family. Catherine Blair does a wonderful job of portraying Gillian's determination to win her new family's acceptance, the setbacks she suffers, and her uncertainty in wondering if she is doing the right thing. Blair also does a wonderful job of portraying the guilt that Avery feels because he is beginning to appreciate Gillian and all she has to offer; and all the emotional upheaval these disloyal thoughts are causing him. And while this is a romance novel that deals with the love that blossoms between Gillian and Avery, the focus of this novel is more that of family -- the healing of the wound that death causes, and the forging of a new ties and relationships. "A Family For Gillian" is not quite the usual Regency fare, but I found myself enjoying this somewhat grown-up book, that didn't deal with the usual Regency preoccupations of a London Season, dresses, and beaux; and I found myself completely empathising with Gillian, and rooting for her to succeed in her