A Marriage of Inconvenience – Susanna Fraser
“Left orphaned and penniless as a young child, Lucy Jones learned to curb her temper, her passions, and even her sense of humor to placate the wealthy relatives who took her in. She became the perfect poor relation–meek, quiet, and self-effacing. She clings to her self-control because she can control nothing else.
James Wright-Gordon also lost his parents at a young age. But he became a wealthy viscount at fifteen and stepped into full control of his fortune and his birthright as a parliamentary power broker at twenty-one. At twenty-four, he is serenely confident in his ability to control everything in the world that matters to him.
At a house party in the summer of 1809, James quickly discerns Lucy’s carefully hidden spirit and wit and does his best to draw them out. After being caught in a compromising situation, they are obliged to marry. But can two people whose need for control has always been absolute learn to put love first?”
This novel was really perplexing to me. It had a slow, steady, building pace. Not my typical romance with the twists and turns and more rapid pacing. Though, it did have twists and turns. It was intriguing and kept me reading all night. The way some of the secondary relationships were left at the wayside was a bit distracting to the overall flow of the book —there are three all told— that take center stage and then two simply vanish, no fade— just gone. I mean they got wrapped up eventually, but it was distracting when they just fell off the radar.
The writing was lovely, the majority of the story was in Lucy’s perspective, with intermittent scenes from other’s perspectives, and that fact made the transition to others a little unexpected because I got so settled into Lucy’s head (though not 1st person) that when it shifted for a little bit I was very aware of it.
I really liked Lucy, and the love story was beautiful, gentle, building and graceful. I did not think James’ reaction to the trust issue was in keeping with his personality, it really threw me off. And it was odd that more of their personalities came out after the wedding than before. And along those lines, for something from the blurb to happen halfway through the book was seriously odd, because I kept waiting for it, was expecting it, and it wasn’t happening. That bugged me. I went back and read the blurb again to make sure I was reading the right book! Weird weird weird.
At any rate. I give it 4 stars because honestly it kept me up till 2:30 last night reading, and I had to get up at 7. So there’s that. I did skim over some of the internal waffling at the end, it was unnecessary, but I was tired. I never wanted to throw the book across the room, I never once rolled my eyes, and the only WTFckry was the blurb thing, I mean seriously, almost to the page halfway through. But I really liked the characters. They were very well done.
I know this review seems to be all over, and it is. Like I said, this book had me perplexed. I’m still trying to figure out what happened to me while reading it. It was wonderful in all its strange, confusingness (yes it’s a word, I just made it up). I liked all the things about it I don’t normally like about other novels. SO…I just don’t know.
OH! And the cover, I almost forgot…WELL DONE. Beautiful. Wonderful, I would buy the book for that cover alone.
I just discovered —in all my linking glory— that one of the other romances in the book is in itself a book, published previously. So there is that, it is titled The Sergeant’s Lady and was released last year. I will have to read it now (also a beautiful cover). That explains the treatment of the relationship in this book. I had no idea.
I received this book from NetGalley for review.
The Illustrated Romance 