Book Review: No Earls Allowed By Shana Galen

Title: No Earls Allowed

Series: The Survivors #2

Author: Shana Galen

Genre: Historical Romance

My Rating: ★ ★ ★ ½

It is a truth universally acknowledged
that a lady can do anything a man can do:
backwards and in high-heeled dancing slippers.

Lady Juliana, daughter of the Earl of St. Maur, needs all the help she can get. She's running a ramshackle orphanage, London's worst slumlord has illicit designs on her, and her father has suddenly become determined to marry her off.

Enter Major Neil Wraxall, bastard son of the Marquess of Kensington, sent to assist Lady Juliana in any way he can. Lucky for her, he's handy with repairs, knows how to keep her and the orphans safe, and is a natural leader of men.

Unfortunately for both of them, the scandal that ensues from their mutual attraction is going to lead them a merry dance...

No Earls Allowed is the second book in the survivors series, which focuses on the surviving members of a unit who were given the most dangerous missions during the Napoleonic War. These survivors have been nicknamed the Draven's Dozen.

Major Neil Wraxall the illegitimate son of the Marquess of Kensington is charged with the task of retrieving the daughter of the Earl of St Maur from an orphange that she is currently running and residing in.

Lady Juliana is trying her hardest to keep the orphanage that her late sister Harriet supported but with dwindling funds, no staff and the attentions of the local crime-lord Mr. Slag, who wants payment either in cash or by her sleeping with him in exchange for protection she is struggling and in desperate need of some assistance.

When Neil arrives at the orphange the whole place is in chaos, the boys running wild, three pet rats on the loose, a leaking roof and the cook has just resigned.

Characters:

Juliana: I had mixed feelings about Juliana, on the one hand she was strong, couragous and determined but then she went on to make really reckless decisions. Overall I enjoyed seeing her come to some realizations about herself and why the orphange was so inportant to her, which I won't go into here because I don't want to spoil it

Neil: I really liked Neil. He is struggling with the guilt from all the men who didn't make it through the war and also the death of his older legitimate half brother Christopher which he does with alcohol to try and hold off the nightmares. I loved his interactions with the boys of the orphange which were at times funny but also kind of sweet.

Children in books for me are a bit hit or miss but here I actually really enjoyed them.

I think I liked this better than the first one (Third Son's A Charm) and am looking forward to reading book 3.

Find it on Goodreads