To Love a Governess: a Timeless Regency Collection by Josi Kilpack, Heather B. Moore, and Julie Daines

 How could I resist this short story collection by three of my "Clean Romance Writers" A-list authors.  In each story a handsome rich man falls for a beautiful, but humble governess. 

In the first, Dina's fortunes have declined while her childhood friend David's have improved.  Even though Dina still holds a torch for David, she is determined not to interfere with his match to a "suitable" heiress, until she sees the fiancée sneaking off into the woods with another man.  

In the second, when Captain Ridout's brother and sister-in-law die suddenly of a sickness, he finds himself in possession of both and estate and two orphaned children. Emmeline is from a good family but is heartbroken when her crush marries another women.  To get away from the situation, she takes the position as a governess for the captain just for a year until she can make enough money to start a new life.  She doesn't bargain on falling in love with the children and their uncle.

In the third, Sarah Woolsey was orphaned as young child and accepted as a charity student at a girl's school.  She becomes a housemaid  but is hastily elevated to be the governess to a foundling child left on her employer's doorstep.  Her frank country ways and unspoiled beauty captures the attention of her employer, but can he convince she is good enough to marry a gentleman? 

This is a sweet and delightful collection--just what you would expect from the book description and title. It is shameless wish fulfillment, but sometimes that is just what we want to read.
(320 p. 2019)

Reckless by Cornela Funke

 Jacob's father disappears one day without a trace. Jacob discovers a magic mirror in his dad's office into another, dark world.  Hoping to find his father, and drawn to the danger in the mirror world, Jacob spends more and more time there, keeping it a secret from younger brother, William. Then one day William finds his way into the mirror world and is infected by a wound curse.  Jacob races against time to try to find a way to do what no one else has ever done, keep his cursed brother from turning into a beast.

Here is a good choice if you are looking for a spooky Halloween read. Funke is a good writer, and her mirror world convincingly weaves together the darker elements of a lot of well known fairytales. The scary elements are balanced by the brotherly devotion between Jacob and William, and by the stalwart loyalty of William's girlfriend, Clara. Overall, it is a good horror book except for the fact that the resolution is a bit abrupt, and not really well supported by the story. There are more in the series so I wasn't sure until almost the end if Funke would bring the story to a resolution, but then suddenly she did.  I generally like Funke's books, and I think a lot of readers have and would like this one, but horror is not my thing and I am not likely to read the next in this series. (2010, 400)

To Ride the Wind and To Steel the Sun by Melanie Cellier

Here is a two-book retelling of East of the Sun, West of the Moon set in the Four Kingdoms universe.  Charlotte is the odd man out in her family of three sisters.  When a mysterious talking white bear  promises her family riches and prosperity in exchange with a hasty marriage with Charlotte, they only make a pretense of objecting.  Something in the stranger's eyes captures Charlotte's trust, and she decides she is as well off with him as in a love-starved home. Meanwhile, Gwendolyn is the obedient daughter of a tyrannical queen of a high mountain kingdom.  She is so cowed by her mother that she fails to see how oppressed her servants and the people of the nearby village are.  Then one day something happens that opens her eyes, and she knows she must do something to help. When Charlotte makes a mistake that separates her from her beloved bear husband, she teams up with Gwendolyn in hopes of saving both him and Gwendolyn's kingdom.

This fascinating fairytale has always been interesting to me, and I think Cellier does an decent job on the odd story. It takes some plot acrobatics, and some convenient "Godmother gifts" to make things work out, but Cellier manages to pull it off.  The tone of the story is very much like all her other fairytale retellings.  It is actually something I like about Cellier, you pretty much know what you are getting when you start reading one of her books.  The princesses and princes all have almost the same personalities from one book to an other, with only a few small variations. This princess might be a little more spunky, and that a little more shy, but in the end they are all the same.  Still, it makes her books a predictable read when you need a predictable read. To Ride the Wind (2024, 314 p) To Steel the Sun (2024, 282 p)