Review: Brentwood's Ward by Michelle Griep

Sweet Regency Romance

It’s London, 1807, and Emily Payne’s life is about to be turned upside down. Her father has to travel overseas on urgent business, and decides—for reasons best known to himself—that she needs a protector. He hires Nicholas Brentwood, one of the Bow Street detectives (not runners, thank you), to protect Emily. At first Nicholas thinks looking after one female will be an easy task, but he has reckoned without meeting Miss Emily Payne … and danger seems to be following her around.

I’m a fan of Regency romance, but it’s a genre Christian fiction hasn’t historically (!) done well, and the fault has mostly been a lack of research (one author had the King running the country. Readers, it was called the Regency for a reason) or an insistence in having English characters use American vocabulary. Michelle Griep has used a couple of Americanisms, but not enough to be distracting, and her research is excellent—in fact, some of the descriptions of the poorer areas of London might be a little too accurate for comfortable reading. It makes me glad I didn’t live then.

Griep has also managed to create a plot filled with suspense and tension, especially tension between Emily and Nicholas, prompted by their employee/ward relationship. The writing is excellent. The Christian elements are unobtrusive, so I’d characterise this less as Christian fiction and more as a sweet Regency romantic suspense novel. Brentwood's Ward is the first novel I’ve read by Michelle Griep, but I’m sure it won’t be the last.

Thanks to Shiloh Run Press and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review. You can find out more about Michelle Griep at her website.