Winning Miss Winthrop by Carolyn Miller

Winning Miss Winthrop by Carolyn Miller ISBN-13: 9780825475023 Paperback: 320 pages Publisher: Kregel Publications Released: March 27, 2018

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Years ago, the man who stole Catherine Winthrop's heart rejected her--and she's never recovered. Now tragedy has brought him back into her life. This time it isn't her heart he's taking, it's her home and her family's good name--and she has no one to share her grief.

Jonathan Carlew's life may look enviable from the outside--wealthy, handsome, landed. As he ascends to the barony, challenges await as his sense of responsibility is hard to fulfill when his relatives resent him. These two broken hearts must decide whether their painful past and bitter present will be all they can share, or if forgiveness can provide a path to freedom for the future.


My Review:
Winning Miss Winthrop is a Christian romance set in 1816 England. I prefer romances where the main characters are better people for having met each other, and this author's previous books have had this. However, I can only describe these main characters as becoming worse people from having known each other.

The hero started out as kind and thoughtful of others, even those that he felt had offended him. However, he became harsh and controlling. His main fault was that he refused to listen to people and instead jumped to conclusions that made him miserable. He made poor decisions because he felt rejected and hurt. Also, inexplicably, he did nothing to correct things when friends and family started telling others that he's engaged to a young woman when it's not true.

I had a hard time liking the heroine, and many of her actions didn't make sense to me. She started out thinking of others, but she became rude and guided by her emotions. She justified her behavior by feeling she was just saying the truth or that society's rules weren't fair. She behaved inappropriately then dealt with the resulting gossip in ways that just made it worse. For example, she tells people that she is engaged to a nice man hoping that will stop gossip. Only she fully intends to later break that engagement, which will only ruin her reputation more, which she doesn't seem to consider. Also, she frequently jumped to wrong conclusions about the hero's actions.

Despite only having known each other for a short period several years in the past, both the hero and heroine feel that they could not love any other despite the ever-increasing hurtful actions of the other. They seem to feel that a romantic moment in time indicates a true and lasting love. The misunderstandings between the two continued all the way up to the last scenes, and there's no reason to believe that their communication will be any better after they marry. Frankly, I'm disappointed that a Christian book is promoting this relationship as a romantic ideal.

The Christian element was a few prayers to God when they got themselves in trouble. There was no sex or bad language.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


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