"In Good Company" by Jen Turano

In Good Company (July 7, 2015) by Jen Turano.*

Life cannot be avoided, and apparently those you would rather avoid cannot be avoided, either. This is the case for Miss Millie Longfellow and Mr. Everett Mulberry. She has been ousted from yet another nanny position, and he has lost yet another nanny due to the antics of his young charges: Elizabeth, Rose and Thaddeus Burkhart. The matron of the employment agency is at her wit’s end with the both of them and pairs them together as a last resort, much to their initial resentment. Millie loves children, and the reason she often (always) ends up fired is that her teaching tactics are somewhat, erm, progressive and unique. Surprisingly or not, the children end up loving her, but the parents or guardians, not so much.

            Everett is a successful businessman with high societal aspirations. He wants to be part of the cream-of-the-crop amongst the upper echelons of NYC – and his summer home in Newport, Rhode Island – in 1882. His lovely, though imperious, spoiled, dramatic, soon-to-be fiancée, Caroline Dixon, fits to perfection his idea of the perfect woman for his standing in society. The children he was willed guardianship over? Not even close. He’d rather they’d been willed to someone else or that their parents hadn’t died in a freak accident. But when Elizabeth is certain she sees her late father’s yacht, something niggles at Millie. Something potentially very dangerous. And that danger isn’t just the attraction that Everett and Millie discover growing for one another. Life is funny that way.

            While we met Millie in “After a Fashion,” we as readers really got to know and understand her in this story. It was a riveting tale. Millie is a woman of good spirit, and even when life hands her lemons (which it has, a lot), she makes lemonade. She isn’t immune to disappointment and frustration, but her faith and amazing ability to love others when she didn’t receive much herself growing up drives her to be the spunky, kind-hearted, sometimes misunderstood woman she is. “In Good Company” encourages us to improve our strength of character no matter what we do – whether we are CEOs of corporations or we’re working retail or we’re homemakers or we’re balancing a full-time job and three kids or we’re looking for work. This is a novel of faith, finding understanding and bridging that gap between high society and pretty much everyone else. Throw in a whodunit plot and a spark of romance, and you’ve got another shining novel from Turano. Highly recommend!

* Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Bethany House Publishers. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions are expressly my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”