Frances Plimpton has been overlooked and underestimated her entire life. The first time it finally seems like someone notices her, she nearly ends up compromised. When the charming earl proposes marriage, she can't believe her luck. Until he explains that he has no interest in her romantically, and it would be a marriage of convenience, nothing more.
As they adjust to a companionable version of married life, will Nathaniel be able to move on from his tragic loss and open his heart once more?
Will Frances finally see her true worth?
Can love grow in even the darkest of places?
Fifty-seven chapters plus an epilogue for a historical romance is honestly a little diabolical; especially when so many of those chapters could have been removed without losing anything important to the story.
This was, at its core, a cute (if fairly unoriginal) novel, but I ran into two major issues that made it a much slower read than I wanted it to be. The first was the characters themselves. For most of the book, Frances allows everyone around her to walk all over her. She convinces herself she’s content with the bare minimum when she clearly isn’t, she repeatedly accepts Nathaniel’s flimsy excuses, and continues to tolerate being belittled by both her parents and her sister Iris. Even after her marriage, when it becomes painfully obvious her parents only value her because of her connection to an Earl, she still agrees to pay off her father’s gambling debts and replenish the family accounts. And for what, exactly? There is no emotional payoff here as she banishes them from her life in the same breath that she says they will pay off the debts.
Nathaniel wasn’t much better. His constant hot-and-cold behavior grew frustrating fast. One moment he’s opening up and showing genuine affection, and the next he’s shutting her out again, leaving Frances (and honestly the reader) right back where they started (which I will touch more on in a minute).
My second major issue was how often the author repeated key character details, as though readers couldn’t possibly remember them on their own. Frances’ birthmark (and her shame surrounding it), is brought up again and again. Nathaniel’s lost love, Jo, is mentioned so frequently that it became exhausting. Every few chapters he reflects on how deeply he cares for Frances and how she surpasses Jo in every way… only to immediately push his wife away and break her heart all over again. By the halfway point, every mention of Jo had me rolling my eyes and muttering for Nathaniel to please just move on already.
There were also a few moments that simply didn’t make sense. After their marriage, Nathaniel and Frances are caught in a rainstorm so severe that her gown becomes transparent. Yet moments later he’s escorting her back into the ballroom as if that wouldn’t cause a scandal despite them being married. Jacket or not, that felt wildly unrealistic. There’s also a point where the narrative seems to forget which sister is meant to be the cruel one, briefly swapping Iris and Mary’s established roles.
In the end, this book took me far longer to finish than it should have because I kept setting it aside and forgetting to come back to it, mostly due to Nathaniel’s repetitive internal struggle and the constant reminders of plot points we already understood. While I don’t think this particular series is for me, I’d still be open to giving this author another chance down the road, and I can absolutely see this story working better for readers who enjoy slower, more introspective romances.
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