Recently while watching Say Yes to the Dress the author was on the show and could not stop boasting about how she writes romance novels. So I looked up her work and saw great reviews for this and the few negative reviews were mostly by people that didn't bother to even finish the book, which usually I feel don't count. I wish I wouldn't have wasted my time with this. The characters were not likable, the dialogue was too modern and I could not help but snort whenever the servants spoke ('ow be ye guvnah?), it was just ridiculous that the virgin lead would just sleep with a man she practically hates. Even the love scenes were a bore and I found myself rolling my eyes even more than the characters did. I've read several historical romances that I didn't care for, but I would not waste my time with another book by this author again. This book was well written, fast paced and had a lot of conflict, which was really more the same issues coming up repeatedly in new ways. I read it in one go and enjoyed it mostly, however there were many times while reading this that I just rolled my eyes at the characters and found myself very irritated with them, particularly the hero.The hero did a lot of "just trust me" stuff while not providing any reason for the heroine to trust him, and then got angry when she didn't. Even when he admitted he had perhaps been over reacting and should have explained why he was doing what he did to her, he was still all "No I'm not going to go tell her my reasons I'll just drink myself into a stupor because now I've lost her forever but I wont go to win her back." This guy was, now I think of it, rather dramatic, he seemed to swing only to extremes. Hate to love, anger to misery, helpful and good to assh*le.He spends almost the whole book having the heroine believe he's incredibly broke, always gambling and living off credit and then thinks she's a horrible person for judging him on it, because she should want him solely for him and not care about money. It never occurred to him that as a woman she had to care about his financial health because she (and her sister) would have to rely entirely on him for the rest of their lives. Even after he realizes she has no money and therefore wouldn't even be able to bring a dowry into marriage he still thinks she should want him just for him. He was just all kinds of unreasonable diva sometimes.The sister (Annie) also seemed to have a bit of a rapid change. She went from typical over the top teenager who doesn't quite think of what is happening and why such things are happening, to behaving like an adult and being actually intelligent and thoughtful for the last half/third of the book. I understand there was this conflict at about that point which was a bit of a turning point for her but having not seen this side of her at all it didn't quite fit what we'd seen of her. Although the heroine did a bit of that too. This apparently practical woman who knew she and her sister were in dire straits and desperately needed money who was good friends with a really nice lord never once considered getting his help with some of the problems they had. She acts very proud and refuses help except in the most extreme of circumstances I'm supposed to believe she was also practical and doing all this stuff to help her sister and telling her about not being overly romantic. It just didn't fit. She and the hero were rather well matched in that, he wanted everyone to believe he was broke and she wanted everyone to believe she had money and neither would back down on letting that impression stand. Overall it was a lovely book with some excellent writing but the only semi main character I didn't want to hit was Medford (the heroine's friend). He seemed to be the only reasonable and sane person in the whole story. Also Jordan (The hero's friend) he also seemed sane and not overly dramatic.
Do You like book Secrets Of A Wedding Night (2012)?
Loved this book I cannot wait to read this entire series!
—glouw
