An Uncommon Courtship

This book in a word: awkward.

Such a pity, since I was really looking forward to Trent's story, and I have a soft spot for marriage-of-convenience stories done right. The entire story begins with the marriage, and Trent's eager wish to get away. He tries to include Adelaide to some extent, but the more he messes up, the more he withdraws. He begins to be attracted to her, so then he runs faster in the opposite direction. For the first hundred pages, it's frustrating but also humorous. But Adelaide is totally at sea with how to conduct herself, totally alone with no friends in London, and being completely ignored by her new husband. I felt more and more sorry for her as the story progressed.

So, now we have a man who has supposedly married a country lass to save her name from being smirched because of having been in an abandoned castle overnight with her. When he gets to London, he immediately begins to open her up to societal ridicule. First, he doesn't tell his mother about the marriage; she is a lion in society who should have introduced a new daughter-in-law at the first opportunity. Second, he feels awkward and decides to move out of his house into his brother's and to court her by seeing her once or twice a day. Does he not realize that in those two actions he has not only totally undone what he did by marrying her, but also brought her to the attention of a society that previously had no thoughts of her? Wow, totally not the actions of a hero here.

Though, we also get treated to a hot kiss with tongues and teeth involved...what?

Each plot point built on the other with an added bit of unrealism. We even have the nasty lecher that wants to have an affair with the heroine, even though he's apparently already had an affair with her mother. In the end, there are a few verses and a Bible study that is thrown in, where Trent is hoping to learn the meaning of love. It was too little too late, and even then it felt awkward, coming as it did the morning after the Big Fail.

Content: steamy
Age range: Not recommended. Period.

If you are under 18, do NOT click on the spoiler. If you intend to read the book, don't click. This is a MAJOR spoiler.

Okay, so since when did it become okay in CBA, in the middle of a "sweet" series, to detail the MCs having sex for the first time and to document the reaction to it? To not only do that, but to have the H go tell his friend all about it and ask what he did wrong? We aren't taken chronologically through the entire sex scene, but we get most of it: the undressing each other, the marvel of being alone together, the heated kisses before the bedding. In retrospect, we get his bliss at their moment of joining and her cry of pain. What?! And his whole thing of "Oh my, it hurts a woman to have sex? What am I gonna do?" Later on, we also get the blow by blow of whose bed they're using and that they'd "figured out the carnal part by now." This was a major plot point just past the halfway mark. About 100 pages dedicated to this back and forth brought on by a semi-failed sex encounter. This is the sort of thing you can't unread...I'm just glad that I didn't purchase a copy. I finished it because it was a library copy expiring in a few hours and I had a lurid fascination for how far this thing was going to go. I also kept hoping Adelaide would grow some sort of backbone and tell him off.Then, at the end, I was just left numb and amazed. I've not left a review until today because first I had to stop blushing and second it wouldn't have made sense. I may or may not read the fourth book, depending on friends' reactions when it comes out.