The Homecoming

This was my first book from Marion Chesney. An old-fashioned romance that is engaging and concise. I am hooked.

I discovered the Daughters of Mannerling quite by accident in the library one day, and got hook. I was worried about how this author would end her series, but the end makes everyone happy, with a slight shiver.

Lizzie Mannerling, the youngest of the sisters and the only unmarried one, is her mother, Lady Beverly's last hope to keeping the family house. When Gervase, the Duke of Sevenshire arrives to speak with his aunt, who is serving as a governess, Beverly sees her chance. If Lizzie marries the eligible bachelor, who has just purchased the house and seeks an aristocratic wife, the house remaisn with the family. There are three things wrong with Beverly's plan. The first is that Lizzie will only marry for love of a man, not a house. The second is that Gervase plans to make his own selection and Lizzie is not in the running. The third problem is the gothic house itself which seems opposed to any union between Lizzie and Gervase. So what's mother to do, simple interfere, matchmake, and pray that the two of them realize that they have a chance for a lifetime of love. The sixth and final installment in Marion Chesney's "Daughters of Mannerling" is a beautiful Regency romance. The lead protagonists are brilliantly written characters, but it is the myriad of eccentric yet extremely interesting secondary players that make THE HOMECOMEING, like its five predecessors in their particular years, into one of the top Regencies of this year. Harriet Klausner