Lessons in Loving

by Peter McAra

Wanted: Governess. Properly qualified in English, to instruct male pupil in rural location. Sydney, 1902. Desperate for a job, Kate Courtney travels to the faraway New England Ranges to interview for a governess position. She is greeted by wealthy landowner, ruggedly handsome Tom Fortescue, and is shocked to find that her new charge isn't a small boy - but the grown man. It was Tom's mother's dying wish that he find a refined, elegant, English bride to marry. But a country man with country manners can never win a lady fair. Tom needs Kate to smooth away his rough edges, make him desirable to the English rose he wants to marry. But the more time Kate and Tom spend together, the closer they become, and Tom has to decide between the dreams of his childhood, and the reality that is right in front of him.

• ISBN13: 9781525211836
• Publish Date: 7 May 2016 (first published 1 January 2016)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: CA
• Imprint: ReadHowYouWant
• Edition: Large type / large print edition
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 288
• Language: English

Reviews

[readingwithwrin]

See more reviews like this first on my blog

"Then he read it, slowly, one word at a time. And I knew that it would be right to have children with you. To live together at Kenilworth till we're old. Till we die, even. And for our children, and their children, to grow up loving the spread of those beautiful blue hills. As you do, As I do. "


The book cover and description got my attention, and held it until I realized how much of a romance this book was.
Kate Courtney is 18, a newly qualified teacher that applied for the job of governess in rural Australia. When I started this book, I was expecting her to be teaching a young boy, while his father was too busy taking care of the farm to pay much attention to him, causing Kate to become a sort of mother figure to the child. This was not what happened.
Instead Kate was to be a governess to Tom who was a grown man who needed refining in the proper way to talk, in order to be able to marry a respectable English woman like his mother had wanted for him before she passed away.

Slowly as Kate teaches him how to talk proper she falls for him, and he without realizing it falls for her. It doesn’t become obvious that they like each other until the English woman he was, wanting to Marry came to Australia and he saw her true colors, and why her father wanted her to marry him.

I feel I would have liked this book more if I had realized it was a romance, and if Tom had realized a little sooner how awful his bride to be truly was.