I’m momentarily off the mysteries today and back to a classic Regency romance novel, with an endearing heroine and handsome love interests, besides being steeped in wonderful historical detail.

You may remember that in February, I participated in the cover reveal for Julie Klassen’s new novel, A Winter by the Sea, and I was lucky enough to be sent a copy of the book by Bethany House Publishers and Austenprose in exchange for a review on here.

Genuinely one of my favourite parts of having my blog is that I get to read books like this in advance of their publication, and share the books with you. And today, I have the honour of sharing my review on publication day for this book, the second in Klassen’s On Devonshire Shores series. So without further ado, here are my thoughts…

Winter, 1819, in Sidmouth

A Winter by the Sea follows the Summers sisters: there are five of them altogether, but only three live at their home in Sidmouth, Sea View. One, Viola, is newly married and ensconced in newlywed bliss nearby, and another, Claire, is living as a companion to an elderly aunt in Edinburgh thanks to a scandal that we gradually learn more about as the book unfolds.

Sarah, Emily and Georgiana Summers spend their days assisting their mother in running a guesthouse, thanks to their straitened circumstances following their father’s death. With the arrival of the winter months in 1819 comes a royal visitor: the Duke and Duchess of Kent, and their baby daughter Alexandrina Victoria.

Whilst they rent the nearby Woolbrook Cottage to take advantage of the sea air for the Duke’s health, members of their household staff take rooms at Sea View, including the handsome private secretary James Thomson.

But Emily, before they moved to Devon, was in love with the son of a neighbouring family: Charles Parker. Charles distanced himself once Claire disappeared, but now he’s back and trying to prove himself… but is it too little, too late?

Writing ambitions

Although we get to see the playing out of a Regency love triangle – my favourite!! (requires a double exclamation mark, that’s how much I relish this) – Klassen includes a really great detail for Emily.

Emily, a lover of books and reading – something she shares with the lovely Mr Thomson – also has desires to write. She broaches the subject with the library and bookshop she patronises, but Mr Wallis is dismissive, so she ends up going to his rival, Mr Marsh, who offers Emily the chance to potentially publish her novel, if she writes him a new guidebook of Sidmouth and the surrounding area.

I love this, because it delves not only into the world of book publishing and lending libraries during the early nineteenth century in England, but also the precarity of women writers. There are Jane Austen references aplenty, and it’s hard not to think of Anne Elliot’s visit to Lyme, or, of course, Sanditon, when seeing the Summers sisters by the sea. It’s interesting to think that only a year previous, Austen’s authorship of her novels would have been revealed in the biographical note that accompanied the posthumous publishing of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. Previously, she published under “By A Lady”.

Royal changes

Not only this, but Klassen captures the precarity of not only the Regency as a system of ruling Britain, but also, the worry over a legitimate heir. For baby Victoria was the only legitimate heir after George III’s sons… who had plenty of illegitimate children, but Victoria was the only surviving heir to the throne.

And I don’t want to spoil anything, but the choosing of winter 1819 into early 1820 is a very fascinating period to pick for the setting of the book, because it is one of immense royal change and reshuffling. Klassen includes this well, embedding the fictional Summers family into this context, and including an interesting snippet of royal history – the Duke and Duchess’s trip to the seaside.

The second in a series

This is not Klassen’s first book about the Summers sisters – it follows The Sisters of Sea View, published last year – and I am now desperate to read this too, because I really enjoyed the way Klassen writes.

She writes in a way that does not feel far from the novels of Austen, with sensitivity to novels of the Regency period, but it is with a natural flair that encompasses the romance and the feelings and thoughts of the characters. It’s engrossing, and I spent a Sunday dipping in and out of the book all day, not going to sleep until I was done.

I also wanted to mention that although A Winter by the Sea is the second in a series, I feel like it also acts relatively as a standalone novel. Because I had not read the first novel in the series beforehand, I was worried I would be behind, but actually, Klassen fills in information subtly throughout the novel that I don’t think would be repetitive to those who have read The Sisters of Sea View, but gets newcomers to the series up to speed too – which is quite a skill!

So, if you want to jump straight in with Emily’s love story, and the world of royal visitors to the coast, I definitely recommend this book.

A cosy, wonderful Regency story

It is always nice when I feel that I can truly recommend a book that I am sent to review by a publisher, and this is certainly one of them.

Moreover, I have now added many of Julie Klassen’s novels to my Christmas wish list, because I enjoyed reading it so much. If you like Jane Austen, and classic-style Regency romance in the style of Georgette Heyer, then A Winter by the Sea is for you, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

A Winter by the Sea is out today, and you can find it online at Amazon and Barnes & Noble here.

Thank you to Bethany House Publishing and Austenprose for gifting me a copy of the book in exchange for review.