This was a light obvious romance, sort of a lighter Jane Eyre where the first wife is dead and the rich titled gentleman doesn't get burned in a fire, but Julia was no Jane - she was absurdly pretty yet a spinster because she never felt like trying and just had randomly decided to be a governess even though she could've easily not done that. Also there's an uncle for the love interest that has a plot to get all his nieces and nephews "respectably" married, which naturally has to include girls of a good family who decide to be governesses when they don't need to. Because of course. To be honest, most of what bothered me was the emphasis on raising the dogs. Yes, part of that was personal, since I'm really not a dog person, but it was more than that: I felt like we got more description of the dogs' struggles than the human's, especially the little girls, who only did what was convenient for the plot. Amelia's character also vacillated wildly, and even in her perspective, we didn't get much insight beyond what was told about her in the other perspectives. I didn't hate this book while reading it, since it was a fine read, but I wasn't especially captivated.