Janice - reviewed on 10/31/2011 + 641 more book reviews

This review contains spoilers*****

I had mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it is smoothly written and readable. On the other hand, both hero and heroine inexplicably ignore the elephant in the living room, to a point where it gets ridiculous.

The Earl of Portbury (Jonathan) rescues Beth in a storm and leaves her at the vicarage, where Mr & Mrs Aubrey take her in and treat her like a daughter. Beth has clearly been raised as a lady, by her speech, manners and demeanor. Beth does not know her name and has no memory of how she came there but she has bad dreams and sick headaches when something happens that reminds her of some unknown thing in the past that threatens her. Jonathan falls in lust and then in love with her but Beth doesn't know if she's married or not so she demands that Jonathan sleep with her before she will accept his proposal - if she's not a virgin then she's either married or unsuitable to be his countess. Jonathan goes along with all of this. Neither one of them seems to think, gee, if we tried to find out who Beth is, maybe these questions would be answered -- nor does the vicar who took her in seem curious about her identity.

When it does come, the Great Reveal is so dopey and would have been so easy to solve that it makes all the characters look really braindead. Kalinda Sharma would have solved this one in a trice, but this crew doesn't even try. Ridiculous. And all done to contrive a sexy premarital sex scene which isn't all that sexy anyway because you can't believe in the characters.

Joanna Maitland has done some decent books but this one was a disappointment. I finished it mostly to see how, if ever, she would justify the characters' lack of sense. She didn't.

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