Kate's Progress

May 21, 2012
Harrod-Eagles’s love of the English countryside shines through in this light contemporary’s details of rural life, but the story doesn’t hang together. Jenna Freemont survives “Lousy Monday” when she loses her job at a London magazine and returns home to find her lover with another woman. She regroups and winds up as assistant to Kitty, a distant cousin in Holtby. A widow, Kitty can’t afford to keep her late husband’s family estate, so she and Jenna must catalogue and sell its contents. Kitty’s godson, Alexander, and his fiancée, Caroline, take an instant dislike to Jenna, believing she is there to take advantage of Kitty. When Jenna plots a way for Kitty to afford to keep the house, she meets resistance on several fronts and even suffers an attempt on her life. Incorporating pop culture references and a clutter of irrelevant details, Harrod-Eagles (Game Over) also stretches the reader’s sense of a believable budding romance between Jenna and Alexander.

September 1, 2013
An unexpected legacy rescues a London PR executive from her dreary round of romantic mishaps and sends her off to Exmoor, where mold, mildew and true love await. Kate Jennings' grandmother sees no reason why she should wait till she's dead to provide for her five granddaughters. So she sends them each 125,000 and invites them to do whatever they like with it. Instead of treating herself to a world cruise as therapy for the unsuitable men on whom she's wasted three of her prime years, Kate decides to purchase Little's Cottage in Bursford, not far from where her builder father grew up, and take a six-month leave of absence from her job. The place needs work, but she has the skills and the time for the "Cinderella Project" of restoration. After all, it's not as if she's going to be spending the rest of her life in Exmoor, she reflects, as God and the gentle reader laugh. Soon enough, Kate meets unsought complications. She babysits Dommie and Hayley, the children of her neighbors Kay and Darren Tonkin, in return for laundry services. Lady Camilla Blackmore, widow of the local gentry, latches onto her and takes her into her circle. Camilla's younger son, Jack, courts Kate, or at least flirts madly with her, just as he's done with everyone in skirts ever since his divorce. His older brother Edward, a Byronic type who turns Kate's knees weak, smolders and glowers. House parties are organized; a point-to-point horse race, as well. Beautiful Addison Bruckmeyer, Ed's poisonous London attorney, sweeps into Blackmore Hall with her heart, if she has one, clearly set on marrying the heir. Someone leaves anonymous notes warning Kate to sell the cottage and leave. There's never much doubt where all this is heading. But romancer Harrod-Eagles, who also writes Inspector Bill Slider's whodunits (Blood Never Dies, 2013, etc.), updates Jane Austen so gently and firmly that fans will lap it up.

COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

June 1, 2012
Mondays are difficult for everyone, but pity poor Jenna, who loses her job, her boyfriend, and her home on what she dubs Lousy Monday. In shock, she turns to her sympathetic brother and sister-in-law, who decide she needs a total life revamp. Their suggestion: a visit to distant relative Kitty Everest, who needs a live-in assistant to catalog the contents of her longtime family home, Holtby House. Fearing she'll be stuck waiting on a senile old lady in the back-of-beyond, Jenna is pleasantly surprised to find that Kitty is smart, energetic, and attractive, and that Holtby is a picturesque English village. The only thorns in Jenna's side are Kitty's stuffed-shirt godson, Alexander, and his snooty but beautiful fiancee, Caroline. When Jenna learns that Kitty may be forced to sell Holtby House, she forgets her troubles and throws herself into helping Kitty keep her beloved home. In the process, she sheds her old life, finds love, and heads toward happily ever after. Charming, gently humorous, and engaging, the latest from versatile crime and romance novelist Harrod-Eagles is pure pleasure.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)

September 1, 2013
After a series of disastrous love affairs, Londoner Kate Jennings decides to move to the village of Bursford in Exmoor, a place that holds fond memories of childhood holidays. A bequest from her grandmother allows Kate to buy a fixer-upper cottage, where she plans to use the building skills her father taught her to remodel the place and sell it, after which she will move back to London with a fresh outlook. But once installed in the cottage, Kate finds herself drawn into the local communityparticularly to the wealthy Blackmore family. At first attracted to the younger Blackmore, Jack, Kate soon realizes he's a flirtatious lightweight. The real draw is older brother Ed, who is moody, brooding, and almost unbelievably handsome. But Kate soon finds herself at the center of a vicious campaign aimed at scaring her out of Bursford. Growing ever more attracted to Ed, Kate must decide if she will give in to whoever is trying to frighten her off, or stick it out and see where her love for Edward leads her. A heartwarming, charming, and thoroughly engaging modern-day romance.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)