BOOK REVIEW: My Fair Katie by Shana Galen

My Fair Katie by Shana Galen is the second book in the Misfortune’s Favorites Regency Romance series. The first book, The King and Vi, was so much fun that I pre-ordered book two.

The set-up in this novel is the same as the first. Three 13-year-old sons of peers were sent to boarding school in Scotland after being kicked out of the usual boys’ schools for misbehaving. One night, the three (King, Henry, and Rory) decide to steal a barrel of whiskey from two impoverished sisters who live near the school. Making and selling whiskey is how they survive. The entitled brats take the whiskey and then drop the barrel as they are making their getaway. The sisters (known locally as “witches”) catch them. In convincing witchlike fashion, one of the sisters calls down a curse that when they are thirty years old, they will lose everything that they love.

The curse has seemingly come true for King in book one, and for Rory, who we will see in book three. But now, it’s Henry’s turn.

Henry is now a duke, but is already on the road to losing everything he loves. He is a compulsive gambler. What he loves most, it seems, is the thrill of the cards or dice. He has already gambled away his country home. On his thirtieth birthday, he loses his London townhouse in another unwise bet. Just as he is doing so, he sees an image of the witch from his past and recalls the curse.

Now, Henry is impoverished and disgraced. The winner of both bets (and new owner of both houses) is the vile Marquess of Shrewsbury, who seems determined to ruin Henry, though Henry has no idea why.

Katie (Lady Katherine Malfort) is the daughter of the marquess. He has sent her away to the country home he won from Henry, partly as punishment for showing a burst of independence, but also to hide her away. She has a port wine stain on her face that the marquess is ashamed of. He has convinced her she is ugly and marred and that no man will ever want her.

With nowhere else to go, Henry hies off to his mother’s home – the dower house on the property of the country home now occupied by Katie. The two meet. Sparks fly.

However, there are obstacles to their getting together. Henry is suffering from withdrawal from his gambling addiction. (This is realistically portrayed.) And Katie is convinced no man could ever love her because of her birthmark. Still they team up to figure out why the marquess hates Henry’s family so much.

This is a medium-steam romance with likeable protagonists. They earn their HEA, but there is still more to come. Henry, like King, is still under a curse. Book three promises a resolution, and I’ve already pre-ordered the novel!