Bree Wolf - Forgotten and Remembered

After losing his wife in an accident, GRAHAM ASTOR, DUKE OF KENSINGTON, decides that love is not worth the risk of having his heart broken all over again. Even his little daughter he keeps at a distance, afraid to hurt her with the darkness that now lives in his heart. Since he is unable to be the father she deserves, he vows to find her a mother who will heal her little heart.
At a garden party, Graham spots a young woman with a shy smile tending lovingly to her little cousins…and he knows his duty.
As the black sheep of her family, ROSABEL LANDER has no illusions about love. After her parents’ deaths, her aunt and uncle reluctantly took her in, demanding nothing short of complete obedience. Unable to live down her past, Rosabel only wishes for one thing: freedom.
However, before she dares to take the first step toward an independent future, a cold-hearted stranger asks for her hand in marriage…and as the obedient niece, Rosabel cannot refuse.
Will Rosabel find love after all? Or will the memory of Graham's late wife keep them both from finding happiness?

Comment: I got interested in this book an year ago, after seeing it in a list of titles which had the marriage of convenience trope, one I usually like. This was also labeled clean, which means no sex of course but that doesn't bother me and I was looking for to see the way the author would do things.

In this book, Graham Astor, a duke, decides to marry again after the death of his wife, because he has a young daughter and she needs the care and the education a mother can give her. He is still mourning the wife he loved so he plans on marrying someone who could be a good mother to his child not really caring if she would be a good partner for him.

Rosabel Lander is living with her uncle's family after the death of both her parents, and things aren't easy for her because her mother had married beneath her class. In her uncle's house, only her cousins like her and Rosabel thinks a life as governess is probably better than the coldness of her family. 

After seeing how well Rosabel treats her cousins at a garden party, the duke decides she will be a good mother and Rosabel's uncle can't say no to a duke. Rosabel is resigned to have a loveless marriage but would it be that the only fate in her future?

Getting to the first half of this book, my thoughts were very positive on how much appreciation I was feeling for the book. I actually thought this would be a 5 star read, the very first of this year for me.

At that point, more or less 47% to name a percentage, the story had followed all my expectations:

- The heroine was sweet but didn't make scenes, was not "feisty";

- The marriage was of convenience and the hero even sent the heroine to another house they had, so she could be with the daughter;

- In the house, the heroine started to make friendships, she revealed her kind side and even started to become firmer in dealing with others, especially with the help of the bedridden grandmother of the hero, who also lived there.

I was looking at a scenario I could totally relate to the heroine's trials and fears but was also happy she was becoming braver. Besides, the tone of the story was one of anticipation, as if all this was happening and the HEA would be even sweeter after the challenges and the distance between husband and wife. I was looking for to the point the couple would certainly reunite and fall in love.

Then, I got the half way point and, sadly for me, things started to go downhill from there. Gone was the heroine's quite acceptance of her fate (but never her full submission), she was becoming more and more eager to prove the duke should be more present in his daughter's life. I do commend this and thought she was doing the right thing.

However, I must say the biggest problem of this novel (and probably why I liked the first part more!) was the whiny and silly and terribly annoying attitude and personality of the hero!

I get it that he was still thinking about his first wife but as the plot unfolds we get to realize their relationship wasn't as perfect as it seems at first so I was even madder he couldn't be a smart guy about it and move on! He had another person there who had nothing to do with what happened to him before and instead of being as clever as he is described, he just acted as a silly teenager who doesn't know how to solve a mistake.

Since the hero's emotional state of being was never fully "solved" I struggled to accept the little indications of his attraction for Rosabel were important. I think from a certain moment on, the plot only went forward because it had to end in a HEA. I, however, didn't believe in that HEA.

Now, like I said, I don't mind clean romances, but regarding this one I wish it weren't so. Perhaps a more obvious sexual chemistry, more on the page sexual tension and intimacy would have been a good way to show the reader Rosabel and Graham were a good match everywhere. But because we only get hints and because the hero didn't really seem to have backbone or initiative and because the plot focused too much on secondary things, I feel disappointed.

I think we get a good understanding of his issues but he doesn't really seem to change or want to and that, for me, was a negative aspect. Rosabel is more active but it's really sad she didn't turn out to be the focus of the romance. (Even the complete title is about the dead wife, I mean...)

Thinking about the details alone, the majority of them is what makes me still consider this to be a more-than-average story. I'm debating if I want to read the second book in the series...what if has great elements and not so good execution...? Decisions...

Grade: (barely) 7/10