Marriage of Convenience
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- USD 4.99
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- USD 4.99
Descripción editorial
To avoid a terrible fate, she agrees to a marriage of convenience. But can it turn into a true love match … ?
1815. Having fallen on hard times, doctor’s daughter Grace Ellis serves as a lady’s companion. But on Lady Florence’s death, Grace discovers that she’s been left an unexpected legacy by her former mistress. There’s just one catch. In order to claim her inheritance, Grace must wed Lady Florence’s disreputable nephew, a gruff army brigadier more than three times her age.
She is offered a way out by family friend Dominic LeSayres, who determines to marry Grace himself in order to save her from a grim fate. But just as the proposed marriage of convenience looks set to turn into a true love match, others step in to crush Grace’s happiness ...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this flimsy Regency romance, Grace Ellis, a doctor's daughter turned lady's companion, faces tough choices about her future after the death of her employer, Lady Florence. Grace could move to Australia with Jessie the housemaid and her unpleasant husband, Brian, or marry Lady Florence's 60-year-old nephew, Brigadier Maximilian Crouch, to collect an inheritance. Meanwhile, the lady's disgraced secretary, Pawley, is hatching some sort of scheme with Brian to steal Lady Florence's money. Dominic L Sayres, who comes to Oakford House to settle Lady Florence's financial affairs, invents a job for Grace to whisk her out of Hampshire to safety. Dominic is smitten and Grace is happy to be rescued, but there is very little chemistry to make this a believable love story. The romance has too many subplots left unresolved: it's never clear why Crouch is cast as the villain (other than that he "preferred the company of men," a proclivity that Grace sneers at as "foppish nonsense"), or what exactly is going on with Pawley. Despite the passing references to Australia's gold rush and the ongoing war against the French, the connection to the Regency period is weak. All the expected story elements are there drama, conflict, and surprises but the clunky prose keeps them from coming together.
