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As much as I adored Quinn's Bridgerton series, I'm having trouble warming up to any of her earlier books. To Catch an Heiress is no exception.
Caroline Trent has been shuffled from guardian to guardian after the death of her parents. Her latest guardian gets it in his mind to marry her to his son, Percy, for Caroline is soon to come into the fortune her late parents left her. Caroline narrowly escapes these plans, to fall into the hands of Blake Ravenscroft, who believes she is a notorious spy.
Blake, an agent of the crown, whisks her away from Percy and all the troubles connected to him, only to discover a short while later that Caroline is not the spy he thought her to be. Caroline begs prettily and is allowed to remain with Blake for six weeks--until she turns twenty-one and can claim her fortune.
Blake's mission, to bring the spy to justice, falls easily by the wayside as he, Caroline, and friend James get into a variety of mishaps, one abundantly absurd one involving Blake's mother.
What is the main plot of this novel? There seems to be no plot other than getting Blake and Caroline together--yet surely we were introduced to a plot when the book opened. Blake had a mission! For king and country! Granted, To Catch an Heiress is a romance, however Quinn drops Blake's entire mission for the majority of the book, picking it up again only when the book needs to come to a close.
To Catch an Heiress had moments of delight--in Caroline, you can certainly see the seeds for Quinn's future heroines (namely those from the Bridgerton novels)--but these small moments were not enough to carry the entire book.
