The Belle of Belgrave Square

The Belle of Belgrave Square (2022) Mimi Matthews (Belles of London #2)

Set in London in 1862

I discovered I started this story in January 2025, and then lost track of it until this past Friday.

Julia Wychwood hates the season. She’s beautiful with a substantial dowry, but seemingly no offers. But she has her friends and her books and that’s all she’s needed.

Except that her father is going to force her to marry.

She knew Lord Gresham was arrogant and overbearing and that his wife had perished in childbed.

There had been talk of the late countess’s plight. Rumors that Gresham had kept the woman in a perpetual state of pregnancy, desperate for her to produce his heir, even if she might die in the attempt.

And there’s nothing she can do about it.

Her mother could be as tyrannical in her infirmity as her father. They both of them believed that children should obey absolutely. That the entire purpose of a daughter was to be of service to her parents. But unlike Papa, who dismissed Julia the moment she became quarrelsome, Mama didn’t flinch from enforcing her orders with a hard pinch or a slap.

Captain Jasper Blunt has A Reputation.

He may be called the Hero of the Crimea, but his scarred face is always grim and no one has anything good to say about him.

If what her best friend, Lady Anne, said was true, the captain’s haunted estate in Yorkshire was presently playing host to his brood of illegitimate children. A scandalous fact.

But he is looking for a wife with a substantial dowry to help him right his estates. And dour as he may be he has been nothing but kind to Julia.

Julia’s parents are terrible.

“If you attended to your duty, you’d have no time to be lonely,” Papa went on. “Your mother and I require looking after. What else is a daughter for?”

As is her chaperone.

Seated across from them, Mrs. Major had only smiled complacently, so satisfied in her success at helping to engineer a great match that she’d willfully ignored both the earl’s behavior and his inebriated condition.

As is her parent’s doctor.

“I only need a few days in bed.”

“Nonsense,” Mama replied. “You’ll feel better after a good bloodletting.”

Julia did not, in fact, feel better after a good bloodletting. She felt weak, light-headed, and entirely incapable of defending herself against Dr. Cordingley’s backward opinions on women’s reading habits.

This book is a strong reminder of how vulnerable women-even those of wealth and station–were to the men around them.

And also how objectively terrible it was to live in the 19th century.

I didn’t find many surprises in this story; Jasper’s secrets were pretty obvious to the reader (if not to Julia), although I appreciated how the Bluebeard portion of the story worked out: Julia just didn’t seem like the type to snoop after being asked not to and I quite didn’t see how that discovery was going to come about.

The kids were well-done and not plot-moppets, though I didn’t find them fun in the way I’ve found kids in other stories (soapy irate piglet still makes me giggle).

I wanted to know how things turned out, but I didn’t find myself sinking into the story, which could well be a function of my brain and mood right now.

Characters: Julia Wychwood, Captain Jasper Blunt, Charlie, Alfred, Daisy, Lady Anne Deveril, Stella Hobhouse, Evelyn Maltravers, Mr. Ahmad Malik, Mr. Thomas Finchley, Mrs. Finchley, Mr. Bloxham, Felix Hartford, Nathan Grainger Viscount Ridgeway, Lady Eastlake, Lady Clifford, Lady Holland, Earl of Gresham, Viscountess Heatherton, Dr. Cordingley, Mary

Cover by Farjana Yasmin

Publisher: Berkley Romance

Rating: 7.5/10

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