Book 867: Finley Embraces Heart and Home (Love, Austen #4) – Anyta Sunday

This book felt different from the other three books in Anyta Sunday’s Love, Austen series. I was always going to read it and said yes as soon as the review opportunity came in, but it just felt different.*

I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I think it has to do with the fact that we spend so much more time with Finley and Ethan growing up than we spent with anyone else in the series. All the other books (Emerett Has Never Been in Love, Cameron Wants to Be a Hero, and Bennet, Pride before the Fall) were your more typical whirlwind type romances: sparks fly, a couple of weeks or months past, boom happily ever after.

This one was always going to be make or break for me as Fanny Price is one of, if not, the best characters Jane Austen wrote. So much of it has to do with the nature/nurture argument and the numerous philosophical and ethical conversations that happen within and around the original Mansfield Park.

For the most part, I was okay with this adaptation. It was definitely modern, step brothers and a blended family instead of cousins, and Sunday worked in the pivotal play scene/aspect in a unique way, but for me it highlighted why the original was such a good work.

‘Do you always criticise your friends?’
Ford swirls his merlot and sips it. ‘Pretty much. What else is there to do but laugh at others and have them laugh at us in turn?’
‘A little Austen reference doesn’t make you charming.’
Ford cocks his head. ‘Sure about that?’ (Chapter 24)

This book more than the others had so much more angst and it’s because of the unrequited love Finley and Ethan have, but it didn’t have to feel so angsty. I couldn’t help but compare this to You’re My Home which I read recently, and honestly it did this kind of relationship so much better. That’s probably because it was a couple hundred pages longer and had stronger minor characters.

It feels like my body is trying to write across his skin all the stuff I’ve been holding in. Every jerky movement another word, another sentence. It feels so good to get it out. (Chapter 1)

The couple of characters from the other books, and one of the upcoming adaptations (Zach and Noah Dashwood, one of which is trans), were great to see again or be introduced to, but for the most part the story itself was take it or leave it meh for me.

The sex scenes were decently written and I was glad that she kept the “stepbrother” parts out of it and only brought that up a few times, mostly when Finley had to deal with his stepdad who came across as homophobic/toxically masculine (we later learn it’s because we’re seeing him through Finley’s eyes) and the idiot Ford siblings.

Recommendation: This one just didn’t do it for me. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t the adaptation I craved for Mansfield Park. It’s a perfectly decent and well written romance novel, but it was always going to be a yes or no for me because of my adoration of Fanny Price.

*I received a copy of Finley Embraces Heart and Home via Gay Romance Reviews in return for my honest opinion. No goods or money were exchanged.

Opening Line: “Progressing. A failed grade. Another failed grade. Sure it acknowledged that I tried, but still not hard enough, I guess.”

Closing Line: “He says it for me; he says it for everyone. ‘I fell in love with you the moment I met you.'” (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)