#BookReview: Captive Hearts: A Persuasion Variation by Kelly Miller @Kellyrei007 #Regency #Romance @bookroar_tweets

Hi everyone. Today I have a book review for you from an author who has become one of my favourites. I’ve loved many books of Kelly Miller’s, but this one left me a bit bored from about 50 to 80% of the book, where the suspense then ramped right up. Here’s my review for Captive Hearts, another Regency Romance variation. This one an adaptation of Persuasion by Jane Austen >>>

About the Book:

Will Captain Wentworth realize too late that he has a second chance at love?
With a successful naval career and a fortune to his name, Frederick Wentworth receives a hero’s welcome from his sister’s neighbours.

One person, though, presents a source of vexation. Years earlier, Miss Anne Elliot had reneged on her promise to marry Wentworth, revealing a significant character flaw. Yet Anne’s unmarried state at the age of seven and twenty, her altered demeanour, and her resolute avoidance of Wentworth raise questions that gnaw at his composure.

In this Regency variation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, the captain follows the advice of a respected new friend and re-examines the agonizing circumstances of his bitter break from Anne, reaching a novel conclusion. But before he can act upon his new resolve, a dire twist of fate threatens Anne’s life.

My Review:

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An easy, regency romance read with some suspense

Having read and enjoyed a few books by this author, I grabbed a copy of Captive Hearts as soon as I saw it.

As in this writer’s previous books, wonderful humour and banter permeate the verbal interactions between the characters. Despite this, however, the characters felt flat for me and I struggled to connect or care. After a slow build on mild love-foiled-frought-emotions tension, the pacing fizzled out massively between roughly the 50% and 80% parts of the story, and then the tension really ramped up and turned this regency romance into somewhat of a thriller. At that point, I raced through the rest of the book. Added to this, overuse of exclamation marks distracted me time and again, as did the at-times confusing use of vague pronouns, which I’ve come across in Miller’s previous works. This made for some interesting sentences, such as: ‘Croft embraced Anne and greeted him with a hearty handshake.’ For clarity, this could at least do with a comma between ‘Anne’ and ‘and greeted’. Even better would be to replace ‘him’ with ‘Wentworth’ so the reader can take in the intended characters without having to stop and reread it to make sense of it–especially when a number of people occupy the scene at once.

This time around, I struggled to find pull quotes for the review as no lines struck me enough to stay with me or resonate in particular. All in all, I found this to be an easy read with some suspense toward the end. Captive Hearts gets a strong 3 stars from me. For fans of Jane Austen, regency romance, and historical romance in general, I would say go and read this book!

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NOTE ON RATINGS: I consider a 3-star rating a positive review. Picky about which books I give 5 stars to, I reserve this highest rating for the stories I find stunning and which moved me.

5 STARS: IT WAS AMAZING! I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN! — Highly Recommended.
4 STARS: I WOULD PULL AN ALL-NIGHTER — Go read this book.
3 STARS: IT WAS GOOD! — An okay read. Didn’t love it. Didn’t hate it.
2 STARS: I MAY HAVE LIKED A FEW THINGS —Lacking in some areas: writing, characterisation, and/or problematic plot lines.
1 STAR: NOT MY CUP OF TEA —Lots of issues with this book.

For anyone interested, here are the Amazon links …

UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08B8BDLW1/

US https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08B8BDLW1/

I’d love to hear what you think of this review. Thanks for stopping by 🙂