Merry Half Christmas! Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish

In the spirit of Half Christmas, here is the Christmas book review that never made it to the blog. It did however live on in my docs folder until now!

So over the Holidays, not only did I fight an endless battle with work and school, but I also stockpiled a massive amount of e-books to tide me over for a couple of months. This was also to keep me from getting any more e-books, free or otherwise. That idea hasn’t worked out too well, as I have acquired around fifteen more books in the last month and a half. Plus I’ve checked out another ten with my kindle unlimited. And notice that I said in the last month. That does not include the other several dozen books that have been added to my TBR (to be read, for my non habitual readers) pile since January 1st.

One such book that was added back in early November to this ever growing pile was a triple book special. The stories of three sisters finding love during the Christmas season. It wasn’t until I was well into this first book that I realized that these three are a part of a group of eight in the Windham family series (before you take into account novellas and spin off series.) The series is phenomenal and I have made it to book 6 so far. Louisa’s is the book that I am on in the series, and hers is book two of the triple set.

The issue that I had with this book was that at first, the book really was not holding my attention.

I would read ten pages here and four pages there sporadically between books. Meaning I had barely made it through a minimum of three chapters from the span of November to the end of March. And it wasn’t even the fault of the book, it just seemed almost too dreary to be a Christmas novel. Then one day, it happened. Like magic one day as I was skimming the book on my lunch break, the book had some absolutely funny banter between not only our main couple, but also the over protective older brothers of our heroine. All who seemed to just become acquainted with wedded bliss. And then the pages began flying! But I am getting ahead of myself.

The book in question is titled Lady Sophie’s Christmas Wish by the relative newcomer to the historical romance genre Grace Burrowes. The novel is the fourth book in the series and features the oldest legitimate daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Moreland. Sophie is described to be beautiful yet headstrong, yet a beautiful caring soul. She takes in helpless animals and treats them as they should be and treasures any and all who require love and attention. She is referenced by her brothers as the most responsible and careful of their sisters, which is why they are baffled when the Duke requests that they go and fetch Sophie from London. It is revealed that Sophie was staying in town to visit some friends before coming up to the country seat for the holiday season. But when a fierce blizzard sets in on London, it becomes increasingly apparent that she will not be putting in her scheduled visit unless she is fetched North.

The book opens to Sophie trying to leave town with her ladies maid and her maid’s child. The maid claims that she needs to use the restroom and scurries off leaving a young childless Sophie to fend for an infant for the first time in her life. As she rushes around the resting house the child becomes restless and she gains the aid of our stories hero. One Wilhelm Charpentier (Shar-pen-tee-yay) or Vim as he prefers to be called, comes across our lady and baby in distress and joins in the search for the child’s mother. When it becomes apparent that the boy has been abandoned and that the storm is worsening, Vim bundles Sophie into the carriage and makes for her parents house. Unbeknownst to Sophie, Vim is a titled lord stuck in town on the way to the neighboring estate near her parents country home. And unknown to Vim is the fact that Sophie is a lady. Sophie prefers to be called just Sophie Windham by Vim, and he prefers to be called only Vim or Mr. Charpentier. Adding to the confusion that builds later on in the story.

The pair spend close to a week in close quarters with one another and no one else but a couple of servants. They cook together, laugh together, take turns with the boy. It is all very picturesque. Burrows paints beautiful visuals of the snow banks and the nights by the fire. She even manages to capture the fear of a parent with a sick child for the first time, but I digress. Vim and Sophie not only grow to care about each other during their snowed in days, but learn to care for this little one as well. Burrows also manages to capture that lingering grief of the loss of a loved one. Sophie’s brothers had both passed around the Christmas season which added to her melancholy. The lie she told to stay in the city versus traveling to her family’s ancestral seat is due to her grief. It humanized the character even farther for me and I could feel her sadness through the pages. Burrows manages to test the emotions of the reader at another point in the story, that hits home even harder.

When the weather lets up and the time has come, Vim and Sophie have a silent test of wills. You know the stubborn kind where neither wants him to leave, but refuses to say anything out loud because of their respective “stations” in life. During this whole blizzard, these two never let on that they are more than their names portray them to be. Sophie never admits out loud that she is not a servant, but the daughter of a Duke who loves doing household chores. While Vim never says that he is about to come into a title from an old relative in another part of the country. Both were content to just let the lies of omission float on by because they felt they were too good for one another.

Life settles into a sense of empty normalcy with Vim having left the estate. Sophie continues to care for the baby and becomes saddened until her brothers pop up to get her. The brothers as I’ve mentioned got their owns books before Sophie, but they didn’t have to be read first to get a handle on the different personalities of each one. One is very stringent and serious after being in the military (Devlin). One is dour after being made the heir to the Duke after the loss of the oldest brother (Gayle). The last brother is very funny, and seems to brighten the other two brothers and make their individual characters stand out on their own (Valentine). When the brothers are getting settled in into the family home with their sister and the little one, they get the shock of their lives when Vim returns for Sophie and the baby.

This is where the lies of omission come into play as the brothers let the beans spill that she isn’t just Sophie Windham, but the eldest legitimate daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Moreland. Vim comes clean about being about being a soon to be titled Lord, and garners pure anger from Sophie. Which to me proves to be exceptionally irrational as she lied as well. Naturally, Vim is both shocked and outraged by the revelation. Sophie is just ready to concede and go see her parents she had been avoiding. This triggers a cross country traveling montage equipped with jokes, irrational anger, and angsty pining for one another. True staples of the historical genre. The Windham boys and Vim provide ample laughter for the snow laiden travel scene put before the reader. When the couple arrive in their family seats (which are only separated from one another by several miles,) it is decided that the little one should be given to a local family. Though Sophie is known for caring for others in need, it is seen as quite a taboo for an unmarried woman to be caring for a child that is neither hers nor a sibling. This quite upsets her right up until the moment where she has to give the child to the local vicar and his wife.

This part of the story nearly broke me in two different ways. You have an angry Sophie dealing with the fact that she has given up her child to absolute strangers and the heartbreaking scenes that go along with it. But you also have an embarrassed and still very angry Vim who suffered a major social faux pas at the hands of the Duke. Both try to carry on and avoid the other, but their love ends up triumphing over all of the confusion. Aided in large part by the scheming, loving Duke and concerned brothers of Sophie (and the help of master level scheming of the aunt and uncle of Vim). The couple eventually reconcile their differences, and go to get their baby boy back from the villagers. Sophie learned not only was she in love with the man who changed her life, but she was in love with the child who was not biologically hers. And her Christmas wish for a family was fulfilled.

All in all I do love that I took the time to read this book, as it dragged me into the Windham family series and I got to fall head over heels with all of the family and friends of each book. While the beginning didn’t manage to hold my complete interest, it was the introduction into Sophie being more than just the good hearted daughter that got me more involved with the story. It was actually the love that blossomed during the snowstorm within the city that eventually hooked me. Sure the brothers banter helped, but the fact that Sophie was learning not only to be a mother, but loving a child that wasn’t biologically hers during a time where that wasn’t necessarily okay made the story much more endearing to me. When she gave away the little boy, I actually started bawling in my room because of when she just breaks down to the duchess.

I left the plot of Vim’s aunt and uncle out of the review because it is best experienced when read for oneself. Also omitted was the scheme of the Duke and Duchess because it was one of the best parts of the book. Both schemes were well intentioned, but could have had terrible consequences if they had failed. The family members helped to build the background foundation for why our hero and heroine were so insanely stubborn. Even the display of how grief plays out among loved ones is quite eloquently done, therefore adding onto an already emotionally riveting story. And while there was a lot of heavy source material to wade through, the addition of the funny family moments and the innate sense of humor of our main characters shines brightly without seeming at all forced.

In the end, this little Christmas love story is great on a cold (or not so cold) night if you want something equally romantic and heart wrenching. It’s funny, it’s moving, and it’s just an amazing read. Maybe Louisa’s story (the next Christmas sister) will be the actual Christmas review this go around!