How to Engage an Earl by Kathryn Caskie

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After flowing through How to Seduce a Duke, I immediately picked up book two in Kathryn Caskie's Royle Sisters trilogy, How to Engage an Earl. I mentioned this is my previous review, but after doing some research into Kathryn's backlist I found she passed away in 2017. If you fall in love with her books like I have so far, I just wanted you to be aware. Also, this has a stepback as well, but it's a wrap-around. Check out the layout of the full cover! Such a fun way to do a stepback! Update: I applied this to the prompt of series to continue for the 3rd board of Summer of Swoon.

Here we focus on middle sister Anne. She has been tasked to sneak into the new Earl MacLean's bedchamber to search for some letters that would help prove their parentage. However, the empty bedchamber is occupied by Laird, the new earl. He scares her, she screams and all of the ball ends up outside his bedchamber door as he keeps her from falling. So begins their fake engagement, Anne using the time to search his estates for the hidden letters and Laird to help restore his reputation from his younger rakehell days.

I really enjoyed this book. I think I liked book one a little bit more, but I loved the connection between Laird and Anne. I felt like they connected quicker than Mary and Rogan, but they were also able to get away to his country seat for some forced proximity. I wasn't as into the mystery of their parentage here and it felt not quite as fleshed out. That didn't bother me though, since the point is the romance. I also enjoyed that Anne really wasn't fond of being the center of attention and was fairly shy, at least compared to her sisters.

One thing I do want to mention, is the meet cutes. The one where Mary pretends to be a statue in How to Seduce a Duke was so fun, and I loved this one too. Anne is known to be able to blend and seem invisible. She and Elizabeth goad each other into a challenge for her to steal glasses of punch from people as she weaves through the ballroom. Laird had been relaxing and hiding out against the wall and was surprised when Anne left standing by the wall, having been next to him the entire time. He then watches as she steals the glasses from people and winds his way to her. He plays up being distracted and draws her attention to steal his glass. Of course he was watching her the entire time and catches her when she tries for his glass. In the end she does steal it from him and it becomes a cute thing between them throughout the book. I just really loved the uniqueness and humor of both meet cutes.

I'm super excited to get to the last book in the series, How to Propose to a Prince. I'm super intrigued to learn more about Elizabeth and her psychic dreams. Also what her meet cute will be. I'm definitely going to continue going through Kathryn Caskie's backlist. I would've read this in one sitting as well outside of starting it so late at night. Such a fun and unique historical! I always love the ones that have mysteries, but it's not someone's death or dangerous in that way. So good!

Have you read How to Engage an Earl?

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: How to Engage an Earl, Kathryn Caskie, 5-stars, 1 day, paperback, 352 pages, published in 2007

How to Propose to a Prince by Kathryn Caskie

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After quickly getting through the first two books in Kathryn Caskie's Royle Sisters trilogy, I immediately jumped into How to Propose to a Prince. This is the third and final book in the trilogy. I mentioned this in my previous reviews, but Kathryn is a new author for me and I am going to enjoy getting through her backlist. I did find out that she passed in 2017, so I wanted to mention it once again. Update: I applied this to the prompt of underrated author for the 3rd board of Summer of Swoon.

The 3rd sister is Elizabeth, the youngest and red-headed of the trio. She has a dream that she will marry a prince. Her sister Anne jokes with her about it, only to run into him on the street. They follow him into a jewelry store to see if the physical description Elizabeth had from her dream matches, to find out that it does and he's rumored to be Prince Leopold. However, he's in town to woo Princess Charlotte and receive Prinny's blessing for the marriage. What Elizabeth doesn't know, the Prince that she met is actually his cousin and main guard, dressing as him due to some threats made against the Prince.

This was a really good end to the trilogy, but I didn't quite love it as much as the first two. First I'll talk about the things I didn't enjoy. I was really frustrated with Anne in this book and how she kept dismissing Elizabeth. We've seen once or twice in the previous books her have dreams that came true. Anne immediately doesn't believe Elizabeth and even starts to make fun of her for it. I did not like that one bit. Not only did I wish there was more of that mystical element, maybe she has more than the couple dreams in the beginning, but I didn't like how Anne discounted Elizabeth. They joke with her that her dreams only are half true usually, but everything we've been shown in the series has been 100% true. It's just been her interpretations about the circumstances that are slightly off. I also didn't like how the old rakes that are were taking care of the triplets kind of ignored her as well. I wasn't ever quite sure who they were trying to pair her with here, but I wasn't a fan of how they treated her in this book. It just felt so different from the first two.

Another thing I want to mention is I wish that Sumner came clean earlier about who he really was. Elizabeth really tried to be trusting and believing in him, but I would've like the reveal to happen just a little bit earlier. I loved their connection though and how drawn to each other. I didn't quite enjoy the meet cute as much this time around, but it was pretty cute. Just didn't grab me like the other two. I did enjoy how when Elizabeth wasn't around those that were disparaging her, I really loved her character. It's just hard to always connect when she's constantly having to defend herself and push for what she believes. Also, I wasn't a fan of how the mystery of their parentage wrapped up. I didn't like the announcement that the old rakes made. The girls had all agreed that it didn't matter about their past, but their future and how they were all able to find love. I also loved the epilogue and had a guess that that was what was happening with Aunt Prudence. I just wish the old rakes hadn't made that weird and obviously false announcement. The sisters could've been happy and not want to actively look for evidence of their birth without it actually being ended. I also wasn't a huge fan of Princess Charlotte, but she did manipulate the situation for some forced proximity for Sumner and Elizabeth.

I didn't really talk about it too much since there were a lot of little things that bothered me, but I really did enjoy this book overall. Sumner was such a swoony gentleman and I loved the connection between them. There were so many moments when they were drawn to each other without knowing. I also loved that when they came back to town he kept finding ways to secretly "blow" her kisses. So swoony.

I really enjoyed the trilogy and I can't wait to read more from Kathryn Caskie. I have already ordered most of her other series and hopefully they come sometime soon. I'm glad I'm back in the historical romance mood, especially since I have a couple more to read this month for book clubs. I always love finding new authors, and if you are into historical romances from the 2000s I highly recommend you check these books out!

Have you read How to Propose to a Prince?

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: How to Propose to a Prince, Kathryn Caskie, 4-stars, 0 days, paperback, 368 pages, published in 2008

How to Seduce a Duke by Kathryn Caskie

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With only two prompts left to fill on my Ripped Bodice Summer Bingo, I decided to pick up another one of those. I chose to go with the triplets prompt and was debating between a couple options. Despite being in a contemporary mood lately, I decided I wanted a historical romance. I have a couple of those to read later this month for book clubs, so I wanted to see if I could get myself back in the mood. All said and done, I picked up How to Seduce a Duke by Kathryn Caskie. This is the first book in her Royle Sisters trilogy, based around triplet sisters. Update: I applied this to the prompt of favoritre trope for the 3rd board of Summer of Swoon.

We meet Mary, the eldest of the three Royle triplets. She has had her eye on Viscount Wetherly after passing each other in Hyde Park every Tuesday. She finds out he'll be at a rout next door. She want to show him to her sisters Anne and Elizabeth since she believes they're going to be married. Disguised as statues, they sneak into the neighbor's gardens. Unfortunately, Mary gets found out by the Viscount's older brother Rogan, the Duke of Blackstone. Rogan is very much against marriage and wants to keep both himself and his brother from marrying someone attracted to their fortunes after watching the heartbreak of his father during his second marriage. He believes Mary is a regency era gold-digger and goes about trying to keep her from connecting with his brother.

I absolutely adored this book. First off, it's my favorite trope, wrong sibling. This is also my favorite version of the trope, where the woman thinks she's in love with a brother and the elder brother steps in because he thinks she's not the right person for him. I enjoyed the humor a lot as well. I do have to say, this is not a perfect book and I can see a lot of youtubers and bookstagrammers I follow only giving this a 3 or 4-stars, but I just really adored this. It gave me all the feels but also had some unique parts. The sister grew up knowing that their father wasn't their birth father. However, they come to find out now that they've reached their majority that they might be the daughters of the catholic wife to the Prince Regeant. They are trying to collect the evidence to figure out if the story is true. Now, I understand what the author was trying to do with naming the triplets Mary, Anne and Elizabeth with brown, blonde and red hair. It just felt a little odd. I know that fraternal twins/triplets is a thing, but for all three to have completely different hair colors seemed odd.

I also loved how they were so connected, but they were each so unique and you could really grasp each sister's personality. It also got a little weird with the plot near the end because there were so many twists. Also we find out in the last 50ish pages that Elizabeth has dreams that tell the future. Weird that was thrown in so late. But back to what I loved about the book. You could really feel the connection between Rogan and Mary. There were so many moments where they were messing with each other that had me smiling or chuckling along. The writing was really easy to read and I read this all in one sitting and couldn't put it down.

I love finding new authors and can't wait to get through the rest of the trilogy. I'm really intrigued to see what happens with the mystery of their birth. I'll definitely be picking up the rest of Kathryn Caskie's backlist. She's only published 10 full length novels, so it's an easy backlist to get through. I was looking through to see if she's published anything else or had more plans and saw she passed in 2017. Her obituary mentioned her final book was A Sin in White and published in 2012, but from what I could tell it was never actually published or it was pulled. Not sure what happened there. I'm excited to continue her works and am sad to see she passed after just getting going on her romance career.

Have you read How to Seduce a Duke?

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎

STASTICS: How to Seduce a Duke, Kathryn Caskie, 5-stars, 0 days, paperback, 352 pages, published in 2006