REVIEW; Persuading Miss Mary

Title: Persuading Miss Mary
Author: Leenie Brown
Genre: Adult, regency romance, retelling
Type: E-book
Publisher: Leenie B Books

In society’s eyes, he’s got everything, but, in her estimation, he’s lacking the one thing she requires.

Reginald Arthur Fitzwilliam, Viscount Westonbury, has never met a lady like Mary Bennet. Most debutants would be happy to have his attention, and who could blame them? He’s titled, wealthy, charming, and handsome — everything one could want for in a husband unless you’re Mary Bennet.

From their first meeting when she scolded him for his behaviour and made it perfectly clear that she did not care one jot for his title or fortune, Wes has known that Mary is no standard-order, ton-approved debutant. She is something far better.

She is a lady who sees him for himself and not his accouterments. However, there are two things that Mary Bennet absolutely despises — a flagrant disregard for the rules of propriety and disrespect, and Lord Westonbury, who has treated her sisters ill, embodies both. She would rather he ignored her, but sadly he seems bent on provoking her at every turn. It is, therefore, with trepidation that her father allows her to accompany her sister to town.

When Wes discovers that his mother is hosting Mary and her sister at Matlock House, he sets about the task of persuading Mary that he is not so bad as she thinks, for he would dearly love to court her.

However, he will soon discover that even his charm is not going to be enough to sway her. She demands more than pretty words, which will require him to take a serious look at his life of pleasure and weigh it against those demands and his growing love for her.

But can he make the necessary changes to prove his devotion, and if he can make them, will they be enough? Or will he always be found wanting in her eyes?

Another one of Leenie Brown’s novellas! This was more interconnected to other books in the series, being the fourth in the series, but was easy enough to follow along without having read any of the others. As I am most particularly only interested in Mary Bennet and her stories, that is a good thing.

This was very much a fun read. Some of the set up for situation and character is done in the earlier novellas, I am sure, but again, I did not feel out of place or confused about it. It is a well enough read as a standalone, with engaging dialogue and dynamics, and characters that really feel fully-formed and three-dimensional.

One of my favourite things about this novella is that Wes, our love interest, is clearly from the start right up until the end only ever enamoured with Mary. He only desires her and no one else after having met her, and all his motivations come from wanting her to think well of him. But improving oneself for someone else can be a tricky situation, and it is nice that he begins to want to be better because he sees sense in her words (they reflect what his family has been saying, after all) and wants to do better because that will make him a better man. He grows not just so that Mary will look on him with less distaste, but because he starts to see how he has been living so far has been very shallow and self-centered.

On the other hand, Mary grows as well, not in changing entirely, but in understanding that she can be too harsh and too fixed on certain points. And sometimes one has to change their opinions about others as they get to know them better, and that people can change and being inflexible in thought can only harm everyone involved.

It was a delight to read them both learn about each other, and delight in things that in anyone else, they would not like. To grow as people and towards each other – and to read those around them root for them even as they struggled with themselves. The banter and the soft moments made me smile in equal measure, and I do like the fact that the angst was not too strong.

All in all, it was a fun read and I am glad to have gotten a copy of it. Looking forward to reading more of Leenie’s Mary stories.