Book Description 

In the first installment of a Regency romp of a series, a governess who believes in cultivating joy in her charges clashes with the children’s uncle who hired her, only to find herself falling in love.

When Harry Kincaid’s flighty older sister decides to join her husband on an Egyptian expedition, Harry, a former naval captain, is left in the lurch, minding her three unruly children and giant, mad dog. But Harry has a busy career at the Admiralty that requires all his attention, and he has no clue how to manage the little rascals or when his sister is coming back. In desperation, he goes to Miss Prentice’s School for Young Ladies prepared to pay whatever it takes to hire an emergency governess quick sharp to ensure everything in his formerly ordered house is run shipshape again.

Thanks to her miserable, strict upbringing, fledgling governess Georgie Rowe does not subscribe to the ethos that children should be seen and not heard. She believes childhood should be everything hers wasn’t—filled with laughter, adventure, and discovery. Thankfully, the three Pendleton children she has been tasked with looking after are already delightfully bohemian and instantly embrace her unconventional educational approach. Their staid, stickler-for-the-rules uncle, however, is another matter entirely.

Georgie and Harry continue to butt heads over their differences, but with time it seems that in this case, their attraction is undeniable—and all is indeed fair in love and war.

My Review 

This book is an interesting take on the governess genre, which is almost always highly inspired by The Sound of Music. As expected, we have a fussy naval officer in need of a governess for three children and one large dog. These are not his children, but nonetheless, he is responsible for their care and therefore needs a governess.

Harry is not impressed with the fact that Georgie teaches the children by taking them out in nature rather than lecturing for hours in the classroom he set up. Georgie is not impressed by his two– yes, two– pocketwatches. Norbert the dog steals the show (and sausages) at every possible opportunity.  

Governess novels can be a bit tricky nowadays because of the power differential but Heath deals with the issue fairly well until the “Dark Moment” when Harry acts like a complete idiot instead of standing up for what he believes in. Thankfully, he comes to his senses, and everyone ends up happy in the end. 

There is, however, a minor plot point that bothered me. It’s not even a full plot point, more of an aside, but nonetheless, here we go: there’s a mention of a local lothario who is suspected of being behind a recent surge in the birth of twins in the area. Now, I know that Regency-era people were unaware of the science behind twins, but modern readers know that twins are formed either by the splitting of a single egg into two or the fertilization of two eggs. Neither involve distinctive sperm. Therefore, I remain unconvinced by this lothario being the father of all the local twins. 

I would recommend All’s Fair in Love and War. This was a wonderful beginning of a new series, and based on the interactions that Georgie had with her cohort of friends from governess school, I am looking forward to reading the next books in the series. 

I received a digital ARC of this book from St. Martin’s/NetGalley.