jacey | Booklog 18/2023: Elizabeth W Watkins: The Reluctant Baronet (Reply)

This is a sweet Regency romance featuring Russell Parkinson a well educated gentleman chemist whose recipe for boot-blacking has left him comfortably well off and thus able to follow his exploration of the early days of chemistry as a science. A friend arranges for him to be given a baronetcy specifically so that Russell can take a seat in the House of Lords where his scientific and forward-thinking attitude will help those seeking reform. As in the title, he's reluctant to do this, but is persuaded anyway.

Selina needs to marry and produce an heir to save her family estate. She's at a disadvantage on the marriage mart, being scarred from an attack of smallpox which killed most of her family. She has a potential suitor, but she really isn't all that smitten with him... and then she meets Russell. But her potential suitor isn't quite what he seems to be, and there's a side plot about him, his brother and their strange uncle.

All in all it's an interesting plot, the characters (most of them anyway) are well drawn and the main romance plot is engaging. The whole baronet thing is played down but the chemistry comes in handy.