There's just one problem: the fierce-looking man who crashes her wedding to the Duke of Everingham — Thomas Beresford, the young naval officer she fell in love with and secretly married when she was still a schoolgirl. Thought to have died four years ago he's returned, a cold, hard stranger with one driving purpose—revenge.
Embittered by betrayal and hungry for vengeance, Thomas will stop at nothing to reclaim his rightful place, even if that means using Rose—and her fortune—to do it. But Rose never did follow the rules, and as she takes matters into her own unpredictable hands, Thomas finds himself in an unexpected and infuriating predicament: he's falling in love with his wife....
Comment: This is the third installment in the Marriage of convenience series by Anne Gracie. Since I've enjoyed the previous two books, I'm eager to read the complete series.
In this book we have Rose's story. Rose is the boldest and most determined of the Rutherford siblings, but she is hiding a secret which only comes to light the day she is about to marry the duke of Everingham. Although everyone is expecting this to be the wedding of the season, the problem is that Rose is already married and told no one about this, thinking Thomas, the young man she married when she was only 16, had died at sea. Thomas isn't dead, though, he has been detained for four long years as a slave in an Arabic country after being apprehended by pirates, along with his mates. He finally escaped and arrived back in England just in time to stop Rose's wedding, but she seems to not even recognize him. Rose could not believe her eyes, but she never stopped loving Thomas... after they finally talk, is there any hope for their relationship after so long?
These books have been very entertaining escapism. Those types of historical romances which are a mix of sweetness and character-driven situations, rather than historical accuracy. I think this must be much more difficult to accomplish than many readers would think, and I can only say this series in particular must have been quite well thought b the author because while the stories are apparently easy and light, they still touch my emotions and make me feel happy I'm reading them. I had once read other books by the author and wasn't as fond of them, and I also have another series by the author, which i hope will be a good one as well as this one has been.
The premise of this story is a little unlikely, but I think the author did a good enough job portraying the situation, after all Rose and Thomas were young and idealist when they became a couple. I still think that, even bearing in mind this is not meant to be historically accurate, Rose being so young and marrying in secret was a little hard to accept, and even more when they can't be together. I suppose the set up of Thomas being in the navy and returning and why only now had to be strong enough to merit the development, but I wasn't really into the whole idea. I mean, I liked their cute romance as it is now, but the indication this would be a lovers reunited plot and how they separated feels really flimsy and too convenient.
Well, I suppose there are other even more convenient situations to sustain this plot (it's really amazing Thomas arrives the very day Rose is marrying) which felt a little too obvious, but from the moment they reunite and talk and share what they went through, the story was more about them becoming a real couple, of them dealing with past missed expectations and dealing with things that happened to them while they were apart. I usually don't like these plots that much, but I think the author did something really clever in this series: a lot is set on characters' dynamics and seeing Rose's family so often makes this a cozy story, with friends and family members being part of something larger than life.
Thomas went through something traumatic and, since this is a sweet historical romance with low angst, he can bounce back rather quickly from his experiences. I think the author could have done something better with the potentially emotional content, and even more so after Rose shares what she went through as well, but... I feel conflicted. I would have liked more complexity to these elements, but I also liked the author didn't jump too heavily into them and focused on showing how they can be a happy couple in the present... tricky thoughts...
Once things become more or less understood between them and they decide to give their marriage a go, things start to fall more easily into what we would expect. Of course Thomas ship going under and the pirates and everything related to this was hard to imagine, but certainly not impossible. But Thomas arrives back and wants to help his friends, still trapped there, and part of his intention is to go back himself. This isn't as easy for monetary reasons, thus bringing up a whole new set of situations related to Thomas and his family, and his connection to Rose's inheritance too, which seems too complicated but it turns out it's simpler than it looks.
The romance itself is sweet, has interesting moments, but the author could have developed the estrangement and the return in a different easy, to make this situation more credible. There were times I felt Rose just accepted his return so easily, and after a sudden initial shock, she behaves as if things never had issues. I'd suppose she would struggle a bit more to accept it's really Thomas and their feelings could not be simply switched on and off, as if feels like.
I have a bunch of Ms Gracie's books in the print TBR (and even one or two in the digital TBR), but what I've read so far has been so uneven for me that I hesitate to commit to reading them.
ReplyDeleteWhen she's "on", as it were, she really hits all the right notes. When she's not...well.
Yes, I'd agree with that notion. This series, as a whole, seems consistent to me. But two other books I had tried, older titles, didn't seem as great...
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