historical romance – Professor Romance

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s Review: Laney Hatcher’s Last on the List, the final book in the Bartholomew series ✍🏻

December 21, 2023 professorromance

Overall Grade: A-

Tropes: surprise pregnancy; best friend’s brother; sister’s best friend; banter; enemies to lovers to vibes; found family

Laney Hatcher has definitely saved her best for last. Last on the List, the final story of her Bartholomew series, offers an apt end to this touchingly irreverent historical romance series. The Bartholomew siblings have definitely captured my heart, and Silas and Mary are the cherry on the hot fudge of this delicious romantic sundae.

Whenever you write a couple with the type of fiery banter that Mary and Silas engage in, you know the story will be engaging. Hatcher deftly carries us through their “hate to love,” fiery attraction, friends with benefits, and angsty romance. I loved the pacing of their journey even though Mary’s secrecy and want to protect Silas would frustrate any reader. Yet, this is the crux of the surprise pregnancy trope, and Hatcher allows us to rest in that tension for much of the book. She needs this space, however, to help Silas recognize his love for Mary (no surprise!), but even more, understand her background and its impact on Mary’s sense of self so he can love her the best. Even more, Hatcher grants them the space to learn to “see” the other better than anyone else. This takes a careful hand and decided storytelling to do it well, and Hatcher, in my opinion, has done it in Last on the List.

The ending of this story is poetry as we say goodbye to the Bartholomew siblings while also celebrating who Mary and Silas have become as a couple and parents. Laney Hatcher has done nothing more than make me fall deeper in love with her brand of historical romance. Hoping for more stories from her soon.

In love and romance,

Professor A

new release

✍🏻 Have you been waiting for Silas’s story? Silas and Mary are finally here. You don’t want to miss Last on the List, the final story in Laney Hatcher’s fantastic Bartholomew series. ✍🏻

December 12, 2023 professorromance

★★NOW LIVE★★⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ ⁣

Last on the List, an all-new surprise pregnancy historical romance from Laney Hatcher, is LIVE in Kindle Unlimited!

Grab your copy TODAY!

Amazon US: https://amzn.to/3OCRgzY

Amazon Worldwide: https://mybook.to/LOTL

Amazon Paperback: https://amzn.to/4aaMCRP

Special Edition Floral Paperback: https://amzn.to/4abJa9w

Goodreads: https://bit.ly/3WyhYM8

★ ★ BLURB ★ ★

Silas Bartholomew is falling behind.

After watching my three younger sisters fall in love over the years, I’ve realized I might not want to be the lone, unattached Bartholomew sibling any longer. It’s time I grew up and assumed my role as my father’s heir. But in order to do that, I’ll need responsibilities, a household, … and a wife.

I was not anticipating a secret arrangement with my sister’s best friend who barely tolerates me.

Mary Lovelace wants nothing more than a family.

Falling into bed with Silas Bartholomew was not part of my plan. This unexpected and, frankly, unwelcome attraction I feel for the infuriating gentleman leads to shadowed secrets and sudden complications.

Silas and I find ourselves feeling far more than we ever anticipated. When our arrangement abruptly ends, I’m left with a future that is growing increasingly tricky, right alongside my waistline.

Finally, the possibility of a family of my own is back on the table, but the father of my child is the very last man I ever intended to share a future with. But some connections are too powerful to ignore.

Can I find the courage to face the love right in front of me or will the family I’ve always dreamed of be just out of reach?

Book #4 in the Bartholomew series follows the surprising and steamy romance between two people who are supposed to hate each other. Last on the List is a full-length historical romance filled with charm and wit, an accidental pregnancy, and a guaranteed happily ever after.

Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s Review: Laney Hatcher’s Love Matched, a Smartypants Romance ✍🏻

October 19, 2023 professorromance

Overall Grade: A

Tropes: opposites attract; fish out of water; standalone in an interconnected series; regency romance; slow burn

The brilliance of Laney Hatcher’s storytelling in the Smartypants World shouldn’t be missed. Here’s the situation: imagine taking a beloved series (Knitting in the City series) from the illustrious Penny Reid and reimagining it into the world of Regency romance. This isn’t an easy task as the women of Penny Reid’s original series read against type for that world. Yet, after Hatcher’s first two books for Smartypants, Neanderthal Seeks Duchess and Well-Acquainted, she does it with such aplomb that it’s quite astounding to the dedicated Penny Reid reader. Now, the newest story, Love Matched, poses another challenge. In the story that Love Matched re-tells, Love Hacked, the MMC is a genius hacker. How does one take a decidedly 21st-century occupation and infuse some element of it into a Regency romance? If you’re Laney Hatcher, seemingly easy. You should know that Penny Reid’s Sandra and Alex are my second favorite couple in her Knitting in the City series, so I was reading Love Matched with a critical, yet intrigued eye. How do you craft an MMC and FMC such as Sandra and Alex into 19th-century characters? Even more, when I read Penny Reid’s Love Hacked, there was a desolation to Alex’s story, a struggle to unwind himself from an outer claim on him. This bind is the tension of their story, as over and over again, Sandra must fight for their coupleship with the odds stacked against them.

And Laney Hatcher rises to the challenge of these issues in her story, Love Matched. Even in Regency England, Sandra is headstrong, independent, and brave. Her pursuit of Alexander is the catalyst for significant change in his life, and she believes in him and their capacity for a future, just as the character in Penny Reid’s book does. Additionally, Hatcher composes Alexander with the same solitariness as Reid’s character. This is important because the Alex of Penny Reid’s book cloaks himself in that solitariness as protection. Hatcher’s ability to draw Alexander in the same, but different manner than Reid’s character doesn’t read like a copy, but rather an iteration, a complex, fully rendered reimagining. And I find this fascinating and exciting.

Laney Hatcher’s Love Matched is my favorite of her Smartypants Romance stories thus far. Partly, I love an FMC who knows her mind and challenges social mores to ensure her eternal happiness, and I adore an MMC who challenges her but also accepts her on her own terms. The community we love and adore in Penny Reid’s Knitting in the City series is still a cornerstone of Laney Hatcher’s reconceptualization of this beloved group of women. It continues to buoy the stories. Now, I’m ready for Hatcher’s next book in the series, as it should feature my favoritest of favorites in the Penny Reid world, Fiona and Greg. What will a ninja look like in Regency England? One can only imagine it.

In love and romance,

Professor A

new release

✍🏻 The final Smartypants Romance story from the current season is LIVE. And it’s THE best. Grab Laney Hatcher’s Love Matched, and fall back in love with Cassandra and Alex, the nineteenth-century version. ✍🏻

October 19, 2023 professorromance

Love Matched, an all-new charming opposites attract historical romance from Laney Hatcher, is LIVE in Kindle Unlimited!

There are three things you need to know about Lady Cassandra Fields:

1. Despite being beloved, this diamond of the first water has yet to land a husband.

2. Her bold personality and giving heart help fuel her charitable endeavors.

3. She’s looking for adventure–something beyond ballgowns, drawing rooms, and her ladylike skill with needle and thread.

Thus far, Cassandra’s abysmal luck has kept her from reaching her goals. With no husband and no household, she’s beginning to wonder if she has a future at all. A surprising encounter with a cunning thief brings more to light than Cassandra is prepared to handle. But the lady has never backed down from a challenge, and it seems this mystery man might have finally met his match.

When circumstances, once again, threaten Lady Cassandra’s dreams, she must decide if she’s willing to risk her careful plans for the thief who has stolen her heart.

‘Love Matched’, a Penny Reid Universe Reimagining, is a full-length historical romance, can be read as a standalone, and is book #3 in the London Ladies Embroidery series, Smartypants Romance Out of this World, Penny Reid Book Universe.

Grab your copy TODAY!

Amazon US: https://amzn.to/47q1yu8

Amazon UK: https://bit.ly/3QxFTtW

Amazon CA: https://bit.ly/3ON8uKt

Amazon AU: https://bit.ly/3QBPXCo

Goodreads: https://bit.ly/3OZkRmG

Audible: https://bit.ly/3LgseUu

About Laney Hatcher

Laney Hatcher is a firm believer that there is a spreadsheet for every occasion and pie is always the answer. She is an author of stories that have a past, in a language of love that’s universal. Often too practical for her own good, Laney enjoys her life in the southern United States with her husband, children, and incredibly entitled cat.