The Toymaker

Kay
Springsteen
ISBN Number: 
978-1621351030
Genre: 
Historical

The Toymaker is a heartwarming holiday Regency romance about Ivy, a duke’s daughter, who wearies of her family’s constant matchmaking attempts.  She wants the opportunity to fall in love with a man on her own, instead of being paraded before an endless line of undesirable suitors.  A genuine man who has more intrinsic value than a title and who loves her for who she is. When she meets modest toymaker, Phillip Green, she knows he’s the man she’s always wanted.  The problem is, he is also the Duke of Greenbriar, but he decides not to tell her since she shows such vehement dislike for the Duke.  Can Ivy take a chance on a man who has been lying about who he was the whole time she’s known him?

Phillip is a wonderful hero. He is caring and thoughtful, with a real heart for children.  He rejected his identity as a duke in favor of the more comfortable world of a toymaker, until he meets Ivy. Even though he was deceiving Ivy, his reasons were understandable.  Ivy is a likable heroine who genuinely cares about others.  Her stubborn resistance towards making a society match made sense, but her resultant machinations to avoid the Duke made her seem foolishly naïve at times.  She was too blinded by girlish dreams of love to see that sometimes the perfect man doesn’t come in the imagined package, and love requires risk.   Ultimately, Springsteen gives the reader a couple to root for in their quest for true love, although the road is rocky at times.

 

Danielle Hill