Shortly after the fire is extinguished, a stranger, a young woman, asks him if anyone has been killed. She insists that family is what is important, that buildings don’t matter.

The long-time housekeeper resigns and her husband, the butler, as well. She insists that the fire is simply the last straw. James is in a dilemma, how to hire a housekeeper on short notice.

A widow who has been residing with the vicar and his family is recommended as a possible housekeeper. Marguerite Voisson had hopes of getting a position as a French teacher at a nearby young ladies’ academy but was disappointed. She has no experience as a housekeeper, but caring for the vicar’s children has begun to wear on her. She is glad to be offered the housekeeper’s position even on a month’s trial basis.

Soon Marguerite, a perfect model of management, efficiency, and compassion, is making changes that will improve the lives of many on the estate and attract the interest of the Viscount.

His Last Lover suffers from a too-perfect heroine and from too little story for its length. The story has a linear plot. James is confronted by a bunch of problems, and one by one Marguerite solves them all. In time it becomes tedious. Poorly paced, the relatively simple plot requires quite a bit of filler - such as paragraphs-long description of characters waking up - to stretch the page length. It’s only towards the end that the story picks up speed, and everything is quickly - too quickly - resolved.

Although the main characters are given a history - Marguerite’s the sole survivor of her family; James’s emotionally scarred by his mother’s elopement with a dancing master -they never really come alive. One problem is that Marguerite has spent two-thirds of her life in England and lived with an English family but still speaks with a French accent and tosses French phrases into her speech. It all comes across as affected. Children are linguistic sponges - Marguerite’s English should be as clear as a native speaker. Other than providing an explanation for the devastation of her family, Marguerite’s French origins add nothing to the story.

Furthermore, Marguerite is an absolute paragon of virtue and compassion. She suffers; she perseveres; she triumphs. Her perfection strains credulity. No problem is too complicated for her to resolve quickly. The marquis has suffered the aftereffects of his apoplexy for some time, but Marguerite is the first one to understand how to deal with him. His nurse hits the bottle far too frequently, but Marguerite quickly resolves that. It was believed that James’s mother took her jewels with her when she eloped; Marguerite finds them.

James’s and Marguerite’s romance doesn’t come across as credible. It seems mostly a matter of proximity; their conflicting personalities don’t promise a lifetime of compatibility. Moreover, the disparity in their social and economic position isn’t treated realistically. In Pride and Prejudice Mr. Darcy has difficulty accepting that Elizabeth comes from a family socially well beneath his own. Marguerite’s family background, however, seems not to concern James at all.

His Last Lover is the second in a series featuring the Braedon family and is the sequel to His Heart’s Delight, but reading the first isn’t necessary before reading this one. Readers who enjoyed the first in the series may want to check out this one, but others will want to think twice.

--Lesley Dunlap