The February 2022 #TBRChallenge is “Fairy Tale.” This is one of my favorite tropes, and I unearthed a gem last year with Jacqueline Navin’s The Sleeping Beauty. I went back to the Harlequin Historical well for this year’s read, and came up with an equally good read!

The novel opens with Margaret Catherine Penwell returning to her family’s estate in Ireland, called St. Catherine’s Court, from the hustle and bustle of London society. Nicknamed Marke for some unfathomable reason (I cannot with that name, ngl), she is voluntold that she is basically being banished to the hinterlands to look after her mother, who is quite unwell and had been similarly banished earlier, after the death of her husband. On the whole, Marke is okay with this. She actually loves St. Catherine’s Court and Ireland in general, is concerned about her mother, and longs for the freedom from her eight older siblings. She is clever enough to wrangle from her brother the ability to live at the estate for the rest of her life with an income to support herself and their mother.

St. Catherine’s Court is in shambles when Marke arrives, and though she is only eighteen, she quickly takes charge. Being a member of a large family and dealing with everyone from the lowliest servant to her siblings to her nephews and nieces has given her the ability to organize a household with a minimum of fuss and muss. Unfortunately, her mother (whom everyone, including the Penwell children, call “Mrs. P” to her face) is suffering from early-onset dementia and needs full-time care. Marke arranges with the local physician to hire a nurse to keep her mother – and the ten million dogs and puppies she’s surrounded herself with for comfort – happy and cared for.

The physician, Dr. John Barrows of nearby Bantry, is very impressed with Marke’s transformation of St. Catherine’s Court. He thinks that Marke is just what another troublesome patient of his needs to bring him out of his deeply depressive funk. Marke is young and lonely, so she jumps at the idea of meeting people and potentially making friends. That Dr. Barrows’s other patient is the local aristocrat doesn’t faze her; Marke’s older sisters have married into the noble classes, thanks to the fortune their father built from his shipping company.

Lord Claymore William Perfect, Marquis of Booth-Ashmore, has locked himself away at his Innisfree estate, following the tragic death of his family. His father, his mother, and his six-year-old sister all perished in a fire at their London house; Claymore had been trapped by a falling beam and could do nothing by lay by helplessly as they burned to death. Twelve months on from the tragedy, his body has physically healed, but he still struggles under the mountain of survivor’s guilt and a general lack of will to live. He is prone to spending days alone in his bedchamber while depression eats away at him. Dr. Barrows believes that Lord Perfect can easily regain the ability to walk, if he can be persuaded to put some effort into it. Instead, he’s confined himself to an invalid chair and snarls at anyone and everyone on the estate.

Marke’s first meeting with Lord Perfect is not a happy one, but in him she sees two things: one, the most gorgeous man she has ever laid eyes on, and two, a hurt little boy who is lashing out to cover his pain. She has a lot of experience dealing with spoiled nephews, so she knows that screaming and yelling and letting him pout won’t help. She treats him like a human being, instead of a fragile doll.

Claymore at first finds Marke a supremely irritating child (he is thirty), but she slowly but surely grows on him. She is the embodiment of the serenity prayer, and indeed it is her calm and optimistic nature that ultimately draws him out of his shell. We watch as his thoughts of her shift from child to woman-child to woman, and his thoughts of his own existence shift from despair to hope.

Marke encourages him to get out of his chair and strengthen his limbs; she even gets her horse trainer to set up a huge, heated swimming tub at St. Catherine’s Court for his use. In spite of her better judgment, she finds herself falling in love with him and wishing that he could love her back. She may have resigned herself to single life, but she can’t stop herself from wanting a husband and children of her own.

Claymore agrees to her rehabilitation program and finds himself recovering his libido along with his ability to walk, run, and dance. He is hesitant, not wanting to ruin the friendship Marke so freely offers – and because he is all but engaged to someone else, back in London. He doesn’t hide this from Marke; he tries to resist temptation as long as he can, but ultimately, he can’t.

Unfortunately, this happens just about the time that his betrothed-to-be and her father decide to ‘rescue’ Lord Perfect from Innisfree and return him to London Society.

Up until this point, the story was moving along swimmingly. The history is a bit on the wallpaper side, and the author plays into the fairy tale trope in various ways, such as having all of the servants be friends with the main characters, and the utter lack of Society restrictions in Ireland, even among the gently reared: witness Claymore’s father’s mistress living on the estate and acting like Claymore’s mother. But all in all, it’s a very sweet story. We have POV from both Marke and Claymore, and their relationship develops pretty evenly on both sides. I went to bed thinking happy thoughts and had happy dreams.

The last third of the book doesn’t live up to the rest of it. Claymore’s all-but-intended, Alma, shows up and has exactly one facet of personality (ice cold bitch), along with her blowhard father. Alma and Marke descend into a childish war for Claymore’s affections. The servants are openly doing everything they can to install Marke as the mistress of the estate, she’s dressing like a slut to get Claymore’s attention, and it takes another suitor to tell Claymore straight to his face that he’s going to pursue Marke if Claymore can’t open his eyes and see that she loves him for him to figure out – oh, hey, maybe I shouldn’t deny myself my feelings just because it’s expected of me! And it ends in a Grand Romantic Gesture, which I am not a fan of.

All in all, this a very gentle story: low-angst, character-driven, just enough sex to spice things up but not take over. It’s a keeper, even if the last act was a bit of a disappointment. If you’re looking for a Beauty and the Beast story with likeable leads, you will probably enjoy this. ( )