Lynn Spencer's Reviews > Someone to Hold

This second book in the Westcott series won me over more easily than I expected. In the first book, Someone to Love, we see Camille Westcott as she learns of her late father's bigamy and her own disinheritance. In that book, we see Camille as snobbish, haughty and stiff. In other words, she's frankly not very likable.

In this book, she's not terribly likable at the beginning either. Having lost her position in Society as well as being very abruptly cast off by the fiance she thought she could trust to stay by her side, Camille and her younger sister have fled in shame to their grandmother in Bath. While their grandmother is an eminently respectable lady who is accepted in town society there, Camille still feels the sting of her exile. Determined the figure out her place in the world, she ends up taking a position as a teacher in the orphanage where Anna Snow, her father's only legitimate child, grew up.

Camille certainly does take to teaching. That was in some ways my only quibble with the book. Somehow Camille right away becomes not only a warm and beloved teacher, but also an educational innovator. That was a bit too Mary Sue for my tastes.

However, the rest of the story worked well for me. Camille soon crosses swords with Joel Cunningham, Anna's beloved friend and a noted artist in his own right. I enjoyed seeing the relationship between these two develop. Camille is prickly and standoffish, but she lets just enough wit and humor show to keep Joel (and the reader) intrigued.

Given that Camille was raised to know her place and to remain firmly within it, her struggle to figure out what she really wanted out of life felt very real in this book. Her world has truly been turned on its head and in the face of so much gossip and societal ostracism, it takes time for Camille to realize that she really does have people in her corner. It takes even longer for her to realize that she can rely on others without losing herself.

Seeing Camille grow greatly as a person as well as seeing her and Joel fall for each other made for a lovely story. I really like the various family members in this book, so I enjoyed revisiting their world.