Wedded by Fate/A Love Victorious

4.5 stars
This is Victorian melodrama at its best and a great comfort read. The heroine and hero are parted by his conniving mother and sister, but that's only the beginning of his troubles. Poor Salome's, though, continue to come on fast and thick through the entire book, one after the other, each one worse than the other. After being convinced her marriage is a farce, she takes back to the working world and faces all sorts of things: fire, an employer's death, a major epidemic of cholera, and so on. It looks as though the two can never find each other again, especially after her relatives join up with his in an elaborate scheme. But it's one of those books that you're pretty sure the author's going to pull off a HEA in spite of the odds!

There's stuff you definitely couldn't get away with writing these days, instalove and coincidences, but this is just part of the drama and the quality of writing makes you glad to swallow it down and keep reading.

Content: a few swears