And with that the Victoria Alexander historical romance experiment is over. I’d read a novella and a novel and decided to give her one more go with her highest rated book on Amazon: Love with the Proper Husband.

There’s a woman, Gwen, whose sister ran away when she was young and then her parents died, but not at the same time, and she was left penniless and alone, so she went to the United States and worked as a governess there, even though she doesn’t like children, but then a solicitor sent her free passage home because of something with her father’s estate, and she’s not penniless after all and has a house, and she will be financially secure, but she can have even more money if she gets married but she doesn’t want to.

There’s this guy, Marcus, whose dad was friends with Gwen’s dad and he finds out from the same solicitor that there were conditions in his father’s will that no one ever mentioned before and he will lose everything, and so will his mum who he loves dearly, if he doesn’t get married before he is 30, in three months, but he has to marry Gwen and only Gwen or all his wealth and privilege will go away.

The guy asks Gwen to marry him and she says “No!” and he says “Please”, and then Gwen finds out that her long-lost sister is dead and she had three little girls she has to take in cause the only other person available is, as the girls point out, a “pickleface”. So Gwen needs money to raise the plot moppets and agrees to marry the guy and things proceed from there in the standard fashion.

The book was fine. It was pleasant and moved along nicely, it had some funny moments, and was nothing special whatsoever. He was a charming. lovely guy, but Gwen was what is known as TSTL* in the vernacular of the genre and she was so more than once, but still it all turned out fine because it always does in these books that’s the point and it’s the journey not the destination. The End.

The (Shameful) Tally 2013

TSTL: too stupid to live

Tagged: book reviews, historical romance, romance review, Victoria Alexander