Title: A Captain for Caroline Gray
Author: Julie Wright
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
Genre: Fiction
Year Published: 2021
Number of Pages: 330
Binding: Softcover
ISBN-13: 978-1-62972-846-9
ISBN-10: 1629728462
Price: $15.99
Reviewed by Christine Tensmeyer for the Association for Mormon Letters
I love reading Proper Romance books that narrate how upper English society women managed to find love through high society events, balls and parties, in short Regency Romances. A Captain for Caroline Gray starts this way but takes the story farther. What happens after three years of going to parties and balls, and you still haven’t found someone to marry?
I thoroughly enjoyed the premise of A Captain for Caroline Gray; I haven’t encountered one like it before. It tackles many of the societal challenges that Regency women would encounter due to unfair inheritance laws, misogynistic bias against education and educated women as well as flawed age perception for marriage.
I really enjoyed the character of Caroline Gray. Despite difficult challenges that end up sending her halfway across the world to India, she is not a complainer. Caroline does reflect a bit on her “what ifs” and “if onlys” and “what might have beens,” but as a reader, her reflections never felt tediously long and the plot continued to move forward.
I felt that the portion of the story that takes place on the ship as Caroline travels to India took a long time to get through, but to be fair, it is a very long voyage from England to India.
I really enjoyed reading about Caroline’s time in India. The plot moves quickly at this point, and while enjoyable, I wish that the author had delved deeper into the India portion of the story. There were a lot of interesting societal rules in India when Caroline arrived. Often these rules were demeaning to the native people there. Even white women in the upper classes had very specific limitations put on them. It would have been very interesting for the author to continue to explore the world in India and how it impacts Caroline. While Caroline does experience a lot of these things, the story just moves so quickly at this point, especially compared to earlier whilst she was on the ship, that a lot of Caroline’s experiences in India seem to fade into the background in the author’s efforts to wrap up the story.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed A Captain for Caroline Gray. In particular I loved Caroline’s grit. Raised very unconventionally for the time period (she does come across as modern in some ways), she always stays true to her core values and genuinely cares about all people, not just the ones in her own social class. I would highly recommend this novel to anyone who loves Proper Romance story.