George Willis, the Earl Grantham, is thrilled that the woman he has loved since childhood has returned to London. But from the moment she sets foot in London her plans are threatened by greedy investors and-at literally every turn-the irritatingly attractive Earl Grantham, a man she can never forgive.
Widowed and determined, Margaret Gault has returned to Athena’s Retreat and the welcoming arms of her fellow secret scientists with an ambitious plan in mind: to establish England’s first woman-owned engineering firm. Unless, of course, you are Margaret Gault, who wants nothing to do with the man who broke her youthful heart. You couldn’t design a better hero than the very eligible and extremely charming Earl Grantham.
So I’m giving A Love by Design a C and hoping the next book, assuming there is one, will bring back the excitement and adventure of the first two. Yes, she gets there, and she even finds the help she needs, but UGH this could have been so much less painful. I just want her to get out of her head and ask for help when dealing with some major morality defining moments in her life. There were literal laugh out loud moments in the novel, and I ADORED Earl Grantham and I really like Maggie. Overall, A Love by Design was okay, fine, adequate, a solid C but it lacked the usual page turning excitement of the last two books. Even Grantham has to beg for it, and while that can work once in a book it doesn’t work for me throughout what felt like the entire novel. Yes, I realize Maggie is a different kind of scientist, but she has passion, and we see very little of it in this novel. I want the fire and heat of the previous stories in the series. They get there eventually, but my struggle is that the book is full of Maggie’s interpersonal issues, and rather than deal with them head on, she mainly avoids or “deals” with them in her head making for a lackluster storyline.
They should go together like the puzzle sitting on my table. Earl Grantham is funny and swoony and Maggie is smart and beautiful. However, the process of getting there was rather bland for me. The concept is spot on: old flames literally stumble into each other and find hope, healing, and forgiveness.
I thoroughly enjoyed the first two in this series and was super excited to receive this installment, but overall the book fell flat for me. Let me begin by saying I REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted to love this novel.
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