New Book Alert: The Baron and the Enchantress (The Enchantress Book 3) by Paullett Golden; Excellent Beginning and Ending Marred By Dragging Repetitive Middle

New Book Alert: The Baron and The Enchantress (The Enchantress Book 3) by Paullett Golden; Excellent Beginning and Ending Marred By Dragging and Repetitive Middle

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: Paullett Golden's Historical Romance, The Baron and The Enchantress, is like the little girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead from the nursery rhyme. When it is good, it is very good but when it is bad, it's horrid.

Well not really horrid, just dull and repetitive.

It begins well with an interesting premise in which a working class woman learns that she is descended from a noble family and ends well with lovers united, goals met, and families grown stronger. However, the steps between conflict and resolution are marred by a long slow trip through the same situation repeated over and over with barely any change in character and plot.


Lilith Chambers is an 18th century midwife who was raised and educated in an orphanage when news breaks out that she is the long-lost sister of Sebastian Lancaster, Earl of Roddam. She was raised as Sebastian's full sister by who she believed were her birth parents. Unfortunately, after the death of her loving adopted mother, her abusive father, the former Earl, sends her to an orphanage where she learns that she is actually the illegitimate daughter of the former Earl and a servant woman. After the Earl's death, Sebastian seeks to reunite his family by drawing Lilith back into the family.

Lilith's skills as a midwife proves useful in assisting Sebastian's wife, Lizbeth through a difficult delivery. She also captures the interest of Walter Hobbs, The Baron Collingwood. Walter is capitvated by Lilith's independent fiery spirit and she is drawn by his altruistic nature. The two become romantically involved, but Lilith is concerned that the revelation of her illegitimate birth could cause problems with her new-found family and love life.


The book starts out strong with characters that defy traditional romance expectations. One of the more unique refreshing takes with Lilith's age. She's 33. When most Historical Romance female protagonists usually are in their late teens and early twenties, it's nice to read about one who is approximately the same age as her usual readership. Lilith is a woman who has had plenty of life experiences and an older woman's more cynical outlook on life.

Also, Lilith is someone who is just as interested in pursuing a career as she is in getting married. Most of the early chapters focuses on Lizbeth's pregnancy and Lilith helping her. Her interactions with Lizbeth such as purposelyt contradicting the physician's reactionary medical advice reveal that she is good at her job.

She also teaches at the orphanage in which she was raised. She aids young girls in their scholarly pursuits, particularly in Math and Science. She also wants to help unwed troubled mothers, like her own birth mother, who are alone and abandoned. Lilith is someone with a great brain and a willingness to use it to help others.


Sebastian, Walter, and their family are also nice surprises as well. One would expect a wealthy titled family to look down on their poorer relation, but they don't. Sebastian welcomes her with open arms. Lizbeth instantly treats her like a much beloved sister, even before she saves her and her baby's lives. One would expect Lizbeth's aunt and Walter's mother, Hazel, to turn her nose up at Lilith's arrival. But after giving some terrified early misgivings during Lizbeth's delivery, she recalls her own rags to riches upbringing and welcomes Lilith grandly.

Walter in particular is also an interesting romantic figure. Like Lilith, he too dreams of a life of significance. He wants to do something important with his wealth and title. When he hears about Lilith's upbringing, he decides to fund an orphanage. While Lilith questions this, he is clearly committed to the goal and wouldn't mind having the assistance of a certain attractive educator/midwife in achieving it.

It is a nice departure to see noble people in literature using their resources to help others revealing that nobility isn't always just an inherited name. Sometimes it is an adjective that describes upstanding character.


Unfortunately, Golden does too good a job of revealing their acceptance of Lilith, that there is really nowhere for the book to go. There are some stereotypical snobbish aristocrats, but they don't really develop the plot that much. There is also an opportunistic clergyman acquaintance of Lilith's who becomes too obsessed with her. This subplot hints that the clergyman could make trouble for Lilith, but apart from having a case of foot-in-mouth disease not much happens and his story is arbitrarily solved.

Instead most of the book focuses on Lilith's lack of acceptance towards her new family, not theirs toward her. She constantly makes assumptions about the wealthy that are discredited by the actions of Walter, Sebastian, et al. Even after she is proven wrong, she still thinks of them as elitist snobs. She started out as an interesting strong willed character, but quickly devolves into a judgemental reverse snob.

I know that she was raised in an orphanage, but she is allegedly a woman of great brilliance and intelligence. Surely, her experience with Sebastian's family should serve as a counterexample to her assumptions. Not to mention that she should consider that if stereotypes aren't true about her, what makes her think that they are true about them. In fact, the more that they, particularly Walter, try to welcome her, the more she resists. I suppose it's supposed to make her endearing, but honestly it makes her look like a hypocrite.

This argument between Lilith's assumptions and Walter's actions keeps coming up and is repeated as though there isn't anything else that the book has to do. The problem may be because the story takes place en media res after Lilith's identity had been revealed in the previous novel, The Earl and the Enchantress. With a strong introduction, there may not have been anywhere else for this book to go.


Thankfully, Golden does salvage the ending into a sweet resolution that works well in which lovers are not only united, but they make plans to open that orphanage and home for unwed mothers, to help the next generation.

The Baron and the Enchantress starts and ends so we'll that it is a shame that the middle could use some of the same magic to become equally as enchanting as the rest of the book.