In New York Times bestselling author Cathy Maxwell’s glittering new series, wedding bells are ringing…but which Whitridge twin is the right groom?The penniless orphan of a disreputable earl, Lady Charlene Blanchard thrives on the adventure of picking the pockets of unsavory gentlemen to survive. But due to her extraordinary beauty and prized bloodlines, she is hand-chosen as a potential bride for … bride for the Duke of Baynton, who is on the hunt for a suitable wife to provide heirs. All Char has to do is act the part she was born to play and charm a duke she’s never laid eyes on into proposing. Except the duke turns out to be the tall, dark and sexy stranger who just caught her red-handed as a thief!
Or is he? Jack Whitridge is the duke’s twin who had “gone missing” over ten years ago. Now back in England, he knows that the supposed Lady who has his brother’s love is hardly duchess material—except he needs her to save his adopted country from war. He is willing to bargain with her heart, until he finds himself falling for Char . . .
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This book was such a HUGE disappointment! Cathy Maxwell has been one of my favorite authors for years, she’s an auto buy for me. But I guess they can’t all be winners.
The one word that I would use to describe the plot of this book is DUMB. It’s so very, very dumb! She’s got these three brothers, one of them is a stuffy Duke, one ran away from home at 15, and the other was repressed and rebelled for all of his life. Given that the title of the series is ‘Marrying The Duke’ I figured that we’d eventually get to the Duke’s story, but both of his brother’s have now stolen the poor guy’s woman!
I gave the previous book 4 stars. The premise of the heroine being in love with her intended’s brother is not a new trope, I’ve read it several times before, and it worked for the first book. BUT THEN SHE JUST WROTE THE SAME DARN STORY OVER AGAIN IN THIS BOOK! *face palm*
Really? REALLY?!
Does Ms. Maxwell not like this Duke that she has created? Is she trying to torture the poor guy?! Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t like him because I don’t like him very much either. He’s a big whiner baby! He stamps his feet and throws a fit when he doesn’t get what he wants. Eventually he comes around and gives his blessing but not til AFTER he’s thrown a temper tantrum and tried to force each of these women to be with him first. Oh it’s just SO DUMB!
I hated that majority of the book, which is supposed to be about Charlene and the long lost brother, Jack, was focused on Charlene and the DUKE! This romance isn’t supposed to be about him! Why did Ms. Maxwell make him SO involved in this plot? Yes, Jack and Charlene meet a few weeks before she ever meets the Duke, and they were supposedly supposed to have fallen in love from that first meeting? Um, no. They barely spoke because she had picked a pocket and he was trying to retrieve the stolen money from her when she kicked him in his privates! Charlene and Jack have two private interactions in the whole freaking book. They come in contact a few other times and they have a dance in which they don’t speak to one another, but them falling into anything more than lust is laughable to me because they barely know one another! If this was supposed to be an insta-love type story, it was very poorly executed. Three quarters of the way through the book and all the sudden Jack is DEEPLY in love with her. He barely knows the woman! How could he be deeply in love with her?
Another thing that bugged me is the age gap. She’s 19 freaking years old and he’s 32. Now, I can totally believe that a 19-year-old girl who’s been poor and sheltered her whole life falling instantly in love with a 32-year-old man who saved her from a street gang was possible. But a 32-year-old man falling deeply in love with a 19-year-old girl? Um, no. It’s just SO DUMB. Why couldn’t Charlene be older? Like 25? The hero and heroine from the previous book were 23 and 24. Totally logical age gap. But the next book, in which the poor Duke finally get’s to fall in love, is with Charlene’s 43-year-old Aunt. He’s 32 (Jack and the Duke are twins) and she’s 43. Say what? I don’t understand what was going on in Cathy Maxwell’s head when she plotted these stories out.
I hate, hate, HATED that Sarah, the aunt, interfered and wrote a letter to the Duke, warning him that Charlene and Jack were possibly seeing each other behind the Duke’s back AND THEN, that the Duke threw a huge fit, threw his brother out, breaking their poor mother’s heart, had him locked in a storm cellar, and then tried to have him forcibly removed from the country, all because he was jealous. THERE ARE SO MANY BETTER WAYS THIS COULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN. D-U-M-B.
I’m not even sure why I decided to give it 2 stars instead of 1. Mostly because I have read books I disliked more than this one. Despite the dumb plot, it was well written (i.e. good grammar, sentence structure) and she gave good descriptions.
Oh and by the way, the one love scene in the second the last chapter of the book was probably the lamest sex scene I’ve ever read. It was so boring and WAY too short after supposedly all this build up and them being so deeply in love. It was like she forgot she was writing a romance novel and just threw the lame scene together as an after thought.
I am practically dreading reading the Duke and Sarah’s book. I pray that it is ten million times better than this book. Hopefully he doesn’t have another long lost brother somewhere, ready to pop up and try to steal his lady again.