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Ten Ways to Be Adored When Landing a Lord
By Sarah MacLean
🎧 Narrated by: Mary Jane Wells
Love By Numbers, Book 2 
Book 10 of 2024

Sarah MacLean is one of my favorite historical romance authors. Her setting and characters are the closest I’ve found to the Netflix version of Bridgerton, because they have some diversity and have some more modern sensibilities. 

Ten Ways to Be Adored… is the second book in the Love By Numbers series, which all follow the three St. John siblings. While we do hear some mention of the first book, these can be read out of order.

I absolutely adored the FMC, Lady Isabel Townsend, who has been running her family’s estate since the death of both her parents, as well as raising her brother, the 10 year old Earl. Her father was nicknamed the “Wastrearl” because he wasted the family fortune by gambling and generally running amok. Isabel kept the estate running by taking in women who found themselves in desperate circumstances. Isabel is the type of strong, hyper independent, protective heroine that I always relate to and find it easy to root for! 

Her love interest, Lord Nicholas St. John, is wonderfully swoony and pretty instantly devoted to the whole house. Some of my favorite interactions are between him and James, the young Earl. I might have teared up when Nick taught James to tie a cravat. 

While I generally adored all of the characters and the plot, I did feel like it got pretty repetitive in the middle. The end absolutely made up for it though!