Friday, February 15, 2019

Heather Cullman - For All Eternity

With all of London at her feet, Sophie Barrington could have any man she desires. But the pampered heiress is in love with the foppish Julian, Lord Oxley, and is completely uninterested in the man her family is pressuring her to wed—Nicholas Somerville, the wealthy Earl of Lyndhurst. Then she discovers why her family is so set on Nicholas: She’s penniless. She must either marry the odious Lord Lyndhurst or face debtor’s prison. A clever scheme to save herself erupts in scandal, forcing her to flee town.
Nicholas always imagined that the wife he chose would possess sense and sensibility. Instead, he finds himself courting a spoiled society chit who’s far too beautiful for her own good. When Sophie publicly humiliates him, Nicholas returns to his ancestral manor to regroup. There he discovers that the newest servant at Hawksbury Manor is the object of his desire—and mortification—and he plots to pay her back.
Witty, sensual, and filled with powerful emotion, For All Eternity is romance at its most beguiling.

Comment: I saw some comment somewhere about this book and I got interested because it would feature two of the elements I usually like a lot in romances, the enemies to lovers sort of trope and the heroine in economic difficulties but who improves or changes her lot by being humble and a good person (that's the intention, I mean!). Although these two elements are present in the story, there are a few details about it that didn't fulfill my expectations completely.
Thankfully, the Open Road Media Romance is re-publishing some novels by this author in ebook format and I could find it easily.

When this story begins, young lady Sophie Barrington is living the life of a popular debutante and is also in love with a man she considers the best of men. She is also having the attentions of lord Lyndhurst, an earl who her family wants her to marry. However, Sophie doesn't like that the earl isn't very good looking and that his conversation is boring. 
Everything changes when her not very demonstrative cousin and aunt tell her all her dowry is gone to pay gambling debts and she must marry a wealthy man. Thinking the man she likes, lord Oxley, will be happy to help help by marrying a little sooner than expected, she runs from lord Lyndhurst but is surprised to know lord Oxley only wanted her while he thought she had money too. Fearing the possibility of going to prison and abandoned by her family after the scandal gets known, Sophie is forced to become a servant, and to her horror, precisely to the man she jilted publicly...

 This is cute romance in its premise. I was very eager to see how a vain heroine like Sophie must change her way of thinking when her station in life is obviously challenged and she has obstacles to overcome. I was really looking for to two things regarding this novel: how Sophie would "grow up" as a character and how her relationship with the hero would improve when close proximity would force them to talk and get to know each other properly.

Being an orphan and raised by an aunt who was never very demonstrative, Sophie is everything a young lady would want and her vanity and arrogance make her a not very friendly person. I confess I struggled to like Sophie at first and her vanity wasn't just a mask or an excuse she wore. She was childish and vain for real and this means her change into a heroine I could care about and of whom I could be fond of never really happened. Yes, I can say she does change her mind on several things but when it happens is so clumsily done, I don't think it was very believable.

I suppose part of the problem is the writing and type of story usually published in the 90s, which followed certain patterns but overall Sophie's improvement and change of heart wasn't very smooth. Then, there's also the telling things instead of showing ratio which made Sophie's actions a little lacking in strength because they weren't always seen.
One detail in this story is that Sophie becomes a servant with all the humiliation that situation would provoke on someone used to be the upper class. I think the author only barely approached this theme and Sophie's thoughts on this when she accepted being a maid were a little too harsh and made her "change of heart" unbelievable in its veracity. Yes, we do see Sophie slowly learning the value of every person, being them servants or not but it could have been even better.

Part of the interest of the novel is, of course, the romance. As expected in these sort of stories, after some time butting heads, Sophie and lord Lyndhurst finally start seeing eye to eye. The fun of this is how Sophie starts to realize the lord she met was playing a role but the man behind the title is very worthy and has qualities she wouldn't think of. Then, she starts seeing his beauty of character and that makes all the difference. The process of them falling in love was quite sweet to watch.

The romance just wasn't stronger because of some almost vulgar tactics in the final part of the book. I also would have liked to have an epilogue to show how strong the character's change in perspectives had been but no.
All things considered, this wasn't a bad story, it did include all the expected trope and conflict situations I imagined but Sophie didn't repent as quickly as I would have liked, her character wasn't as humble as I would have preferred and that did influence my enjoyment. Still, a cute story.
Grade: 6/10

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