Behind a Lady's Smile (Lost Heiresses, Book 1) by Jane Goodger #review

Print Length -  250 pages

Publisher -  Lyrical Press

Published -  August 18, 2015

Sold by -  Penguin Random House Publisher Services

Series -  Lost Heiresses, Book 1 of 3

Genre -  Historical, American West and Victorian England

Amazon -  Kindle Link

Language -  4/5

Sexual Content -  3/5

Narrative -  3rd P

It’s one thing for a girl to lose her way, quite another to lose her heart…
Genny Hayes could charm a bear away from a pot of honey. But raised in the forests of Yosemite, she’s met precious few men to practice her smiles upon. Until a marvelously handsome photographer appears in her little corner of the wilderness and she convinces him to take her clear across the country and over the seas to England, where she has a titled grandmother and grandfather waiting to claim her. On their whirlwind journey, she’ll have the chance to bedazzle and befuddle store clerks and train robbers, society matrons and big city reporters, maids and madams, but the one man she most wants to beguile seems determined to play the gentleman and leave her untouched. Until love steps in and knocks them both head over heels…

The beginning started out okay, sucking me in and helping me want to know more as the two leads bump into each other, injury occurs, and the 'bound together through guilt' trope ensues.

I thought that Genny was cute for the most part, but as the story unfolded and we learned more about her past, I began to have doubts about her mental capacity.

She was seven when her mother died and her father left Philadelphia for Wyoming, so for her to claim she has no recollection of their house, her mother, or practically anything about her childhood just sounds strange.

I still remember my first day of kindergarten, what I wore, and what my pretty teacher looked like, not to mention the oval room we used, and a lot of the artwork that decorated the walls.

I can remember what our house furnishings looked like back then, too.

Heck, I still remember what a few of my early elementary school friends look like, and I haven't seen them in decades!

Off-track...

Here's where the story fell apart for me, and yeah, it was pretty early on.

After Genny breaks her leg and Mitch Campbell uses deer hide to bind the leg, he stays with her in the cave-like shack she and her grieving father have lived in all these years.

Her father had died about 7 or 9 months earlier (bear attack... pretty gruesome) and Genny is at the point of starvation when Mitch the photographer arrives on the scene.

She timidly informs him of her birthright, being the maternal granddaughter of a Duke/Duchess back in England, and if he would kindly get her there, she'd be eternally grateful.

Mitch, being a loner with grand dreams of opening his own photography studio some day, sees dollar signs and decides it's worth it to 'squander' his (massive) life savings to get the pretty girl where she needs to be, expecting a hefty reward for his troubles.

The author knows nothing about monies or antiquated currency exchanges because my jaw dropped at the cost of the 'train tickets' from San Francisco to Kansas ($250), and Genny's new wardrobe ($20,000).

??WTF??

This was the 1800's remember.

It gave me the impression that the author Google'd these two items and went 'meh, sounds about right'.

So, from there onward, I remained just outside the story, anticipating more nonsense, and sadly, the author didn't disappoint.

Mitch cussed in front of not only Genny but strangers as well, AND his mother!

Sorry misinformed author, but despite it being a 'thing' today, there used to be a time in practically everyone's life when MANNERS, DECORUM, and RESPECT were a 'thing', and those rules were pretty much set in stone.

Sure, men used bad language back then, but NOT in mixed company and most definitely not around mom or a sweetheart.

And tossing in the fact that his mother happened to be a NYC actress turned 'madam' didn't work to make me think Mitch was in the right, either.

Mitch wasn't a gentleman in any sense of the word, and for close to 95% of the story, he continued to use crass language and ogle the hefty reward notion instead of concentrating on the woman he rescued and was slowly growing more than just lusty over.

This was a love story of his greed due to her desperation, not about two people who meet under strange circumstances, are forced to travel a great distance together, and therefore get to know one another while slowly falling in love.

The author also kept implying that Genny possessed the type of beauty that easily won hearts and made everyone do her bidding without much more effort on her part.

She couldn't remember her childhood, but she had learned how to use her feminine wiles to captivate people.

Huh.

Trouble is, the author continued to remind us of that fact but rarely employed the technique except in instances when most folks would behave kindly or thoughtfully to just about anyone... and not simply because Genny had a captivating smile.

If I had written this tale, I'd have concentrated more on Genny's being pure and good-hearted but with the added ability to charm her way in or out of any situation while REACHING her appointed goal, bonding with her estranged grandparents, and THEN forcing Mitch to get his act together, clean up, and court Genny properly.

Instead, the author chose to trope her way toward an awkward HEA by having Mitch remind Genny (again and again) that he wasn't aristocracy and her relatives wouldn't want anything to do with him; that she deserved to enter society, meet a titled Gent, and live happily ever after bathed in wealth and entitlement.

IF Mitch truly had that kind of money saved up, and IF the author had done a little research, she'd have realized that Mitch would still have TONS of cash left over after the train trips and wardrobe purchases, to flaunt in front of the Duke.

He hardly needed the assumed reward money if he possessed $50,000 of his own back in 1800's America.

The aristocracy were considered wealthy if their annual income totaled 500 pounds!

Mitch had 50 GRAND in the bank!

This would have put Mitch in the nouveau riche category, and while a majority of the British ton snubbed their noses at it, Mitch would have also behaved like a millionaire and rightly so.

($50 grand as far back as the 1940s was considered a LOT of money, so...)

Not only could he have purchased that Manhattan studio but enough photography equipment AND employees to rival Ansel Adams.

Taking Genny across country by train, buying her a wardrobe in NYC, and then steamship passage to England would have put a dent of about $25 in his savings.

I'm probably being generous, too, because he didn't purchase a trousseau or a year's worth of coming out clothing but a few dresses, under things, and some shoes.

$300 tops, or less.

If the train tickets cost $8, I'd be surprised because my thinking is $2.50 tops.

Back in the day, people didn't 'vacation' or 'travel' just to travel, as the author led us to believe, and rich or poor, you could afford to travel that way... just being seated in different areas of the train or ship depending on your status.

(Which is why I had a lot of trouble with Titanic; there was no way in hell those two would ever have met aboard that doomed ship since he was in steerage and she first-class. Never the twain shall meet.)

In conclusion, people (rich and poor) used trains (and ships) to get from point A to point B with the intention of remaining in point B for a long time, if not for good.

Here are a few of my Highlights

• “That’s something to think about, and I’m sure they’re worth something,” (8%)
• I’m going to see my grandparents, you see. (11%)
• Genny couldn’t help notice (14%)
• He brought up a hand self-consciously and rubbed his hand across his clean-shaven jaw. (15%)
• Then he spun around and walked out (18%) (wee!)
• in a gnarly situation (24%)
• Mitch swiped a hand threw his hair, (29%)
• best accept that England is the best place for you (56%)
• her green eyes snapping. (57%)
• my johnson.” (66%)
• derogative (85%)

There are 3 books in the Lost Heiresses series, and while I did kind of bash this one, I would still recommend it to anyone who doesn't mind a lot of modern mentality being thrust upon 19th Century characters or a love story that really isn't.

I wanted to like this one so read it clean through, but the disappointment factor weighed too heavily for me to draw any honest conclusions about our Hero, Mitch.

He could have been better but wasn't.