{"id":440,"date":"2011-04-01T06:00:58","date_gmt":"2011-04-01T12:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/?p=440"},"modified":"2011-03-29T19:44:25","modified_gmt":"2011-03-30T01:44:25","slug":"book-review-an-unwilling-bride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/?p=440","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: An Unwilling Bride"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I’ll give it this much: The premise is unique. Many years ago, The Duchess Belcraven became pregnant with a child who could not possibly have been her husband’s. That was bad enough, but to make matters worse, the Duke’s two older sons both die in a tragic accident, meaning his heir is not of his own blood. The duke, hurt by the betrayal, has his own affair, but doesn’t realize he had a daughter for nearly twenty-five years. When he does, he comes up with a brilliant idea: Lucien can marry his daughter, meaning his grandchildren will be of his own blood, at least.<\/p>\n

All right, think about it for a minute. No, it’s not incestuous. They’re not related. I did have to consider it for a few minutes, though, and to the author’s credit, so did the characters involved.<\/p>\n

Beth, a schoolmistress, has no desire whatsoever to be a part of this marriage, but the duke threatens the financial ruin of her school if she doesn’t comply with his wishes. In a fit of rebellion, she tries to get Lucien to call it off, not realizing he is as powerless as she. So all she accomplishes is creating enmity between them.<\/p>\n

I did like the premise, and the characters, and the portrayal of a family suffering from past mistakes. The duke and duchess have a reconciliation subplot that worked very well.<\/p>\n

The trouble I had was just an odd lack of chemistry. All the right elements were there, but I didn’t feel it. It seemed to me that at some point, Beth suddenly reflected that she was attracted to Lucien, and I had to stop and wonder if she’d mentioned that before. But no, it came a little out of left field, as did their eventual love.<\/p>\n

This is one of those books that I’m glad I read, and I recommend to romance readers, but with the noted reservations.<\/p>\n

Oh, and I do love the way Jo Beverley weaves historical events and characters into her novels. It adds a certain relevance to the tale.<\/p>\n

3.5\/5 stars<\/p>\n

Title: An Unwilling Bride
\nAuthor: Jo Beverley
\nISBN: 0821767240<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ll give it this much: The premise is unique. Many years ago, The Duchess Belcraven became pregnant with a child who could not possibly have been her husband’s. That was bad enough, but to make matters worse, the Duke’s two older sons both die in a tragic accident, meaning his heir is not of his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-what-im-reading","category-romance-what-im-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=440"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":442,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440\/revisions\/442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}