The Proposal

Title: The Proposal
Author: Lori Wick
Genre: Romance

The Proposal is book one in the “English Garden Series”. The story takes place in the early 19th Century in London, England.

William Jennings is 34 years old and while he has no desire for a wife, he longs for children. The very next day after proclaiming his longing, 3 children are dropped on his doorstep. Apparently a cousin of his (that he hardly knows) has passed away and he is the next living relative to provide guardianship for the children. While he is ready to provide all the love he possibly can to these (seemingly perfect) children, he realizes he is in over his head. He loads up the children to visit his sister and her family in the country.

While visiting his sister, he ends up finding one who can truly be a helper and Savior in that of Jesus Christ. He also discovers a remarkable woman and finds that maybe marriage isn’t a bad option at all.

This post may be biased a little bit because I’m personally not much into romance books, and this one seems to mimic the style of Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice. I think I would prefer Pride and Prejudice. This story to me just lacked some of the realism (even though I do understand some of the culture in that day) and left some questions unanswered such as…What happened to the children’s vast estate?…and William Jennings has all this money and it’s probably family money, but he never ever works so where does it come from and how is it maintained?…and if Mr. Jennings is so smart, how many times is he going to propose to this woman before he gets is right? The story was very gentle and nice, but I miss the depth and climax of some of the authors other books such as those in the Kensington Chronicle Series.

However, I do have to say that I actually listed to the unabridged audio version of the book and the narrator, Virginia Leishman, did an excellent job. She did the voicings very good and in a way reminded me of Julie Andrews.