GENRE: Fiction/Historical Romance
SETTING: England, Regency Period
MY GRADE: D
SYNOPSIS: Ralph Stockwood prides himself on being a leader, but when he convinced his friends to fight in the Napoleonic Wars, he never envisioned being the sole survivor. Racked with guilt over their deaths, Ralph must move on . . . and find a wife to secure an heir to his family's title and fortune.
Since her Seasons in London ended in disaster, Chloe Muirhead is resigned to spinsterhood. Driven by the need to escape her family, she takes refuge at the home of her mother's godmother, where she meets Ralph. He needs a wife. She wants a husband. So Chloe makes the outrageous suggestion to strike a bargain and get married. One condition: Ralph has to promise that he will never take her back to London. But circumstances change. And to Ralph, it was only a promise.
MY THOUGHTS: This was an absolute bore and a real struggle to get through. Timeline is maybe a month or two and year isn't given. Where was the plot? The conflict? Chloe proposed marriage to Ralph, a stranger, less than fifty pages in because she's twenty-seven and scared of being single the rest of her life. Ralph married her so he could beget heirs. It's to be a marriage without love and affection and that's pretty much how it ends up.
Chloe has a married brother and sister and she lives with her father. Her mother died years before. She still has a broken heart from six years previous. She, and everyone else, suspects that a certain red-haired man is really her biological father so that plays out. I didn't care about it at all.
Twenty-six year old Ralph is dealing with depression which stems from being in the war years before and seeing three of his friends die right in front of him. He's got a long scar across one side of his face and some on his body from the war. He's had past suicidal thoughts and an attempt and was in a facility for it for three years, which ended four years before the story starts. He feels a lot of guilt for being the lone survivor from their group of friends. He's worried the parents of his dead friends hold him responsible for the deaths since he talked them into joining in the first place. He even cries once while thinking about their deaths. He's a bit cold toward Chloe, scared he'll develop feelings for her, which he doesn't want to happen, for some reason. His mother and two of his three sisters are rude to Chloe at first but they come around.
Knowing of his past suicide attempt is the reason I wanted to read this since things like that, deep stuff, aren't common in historical romances. So I bought this even though the synopsis wasn't appealing. I wish I had left it alone. Ralph's past is the only interesting thing in this entire story. Chloe and Ralph are basically surface level friends after they marry yet they end up falling in love with each other, Ralph, right at the very end of the story, but each keeps it to themselves until the final pages. We're told they're in love but it wasn't felt by me. I like Ralph's character but Chloe was bland as could be.
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