“Engaging Regency romance to sweep you away.”–USA Today Happy Ever After BlogLife for Lady Adelaide Bell was easier if she hid in her older sister’s shadow–which worked until her sister got married. Even with thepressure of her socially ambitious mother, the last thing she expected was a marriage of convenience to save her previously spotless reputation. Lord Trent Hawthorne couldn’t be happier …
Lord Trent Hawthorne couldn’t be happier that he is not the duke in the family. He’s free to manage his small estate and take his time discovering the life he wants to lead, which includes grand plans of wooing and falling in love with the woman of his choice. When he finds himself honor bound to marry a woman he doesn’t know, his dream of a marriage like his parents’ seems lost forever.
Already starting their marriage on shaky ground, can Adelaide and Trent’s relationship survive the pressures of London society?
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I love this series. I just got the next one in the mail, and I am SO EXCITED to read it. You will love it, too! You gotta read this. Love, love, love! Everything about it. The characters are wonderful, the plot is exciting, and the writing style is great. A must-read for sure!
This is a wonderful historical romance novel!
I fell in love with both Trent and Adelaide. They are incredibly well developed characters. They both had terrible lapses in their education about how men and women were to develop a relationship with each other. That left them fumbling along trying to figure things out. It made them very easy to connect with. I loved how Trent’s family was willing and able to support them throughout the story.
I really loved the way that the bible was turned to to help Trent understand how to love his wife. It should be the place we all turn to for wisdom and guidance when we are confused and have questions. So many times though we think that we can come up with our own answers.
So, I have read some reviews that felt this book went too far into certain details that are part of marriage, and I definitely respect and value the opinions of those that were concerned with this. I, however, loved this story and it is, so far, my favorite book of the series.
What really captivated me about this book was the awkwardness of these two people. Nothing went smoothly for them. Even though Trent was valiant and offered marriage to Adelaide, he didn’t really know how to proceed from there. He had built up an ideal of what marriage should be and anything other than a love match became a severe disappointment. He definitely did not handle things well when he and his bride first arrived in London.
What became clear to me as I read on, was that both Adelaide and Trent desired a loving marriage, but didn’t really know how to interact with each other. And Adelaide was also very new to society, having been ignored by her family all of her life, while they pampered her sister.
Even when Trent and Adelaide began to embrace the physical side of their marriage, things didn’t go well. It almost seemed that for every step they would take forward in their relationship, something would happen to set them back. I, personally, loved seeing them work through all of these things and felt that they had built a very strong foundation for their lives together by the time all was wrapped up at the end of the book. I so loved the moments when Trent came to Adelaide’s “rescue” toward the latter portion of the story. They were swoon-worthy moments, indeed. I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the series and then moving on to other books by this author.
My favorite book in a thoroughly lovely series!
If I’m being honest, this book isn’t my favorite of the series thus far. I struggled with a good chunk of it. It just didn’t fit with the first two. I felt as though there was a lot of angst on the part of both Adelaide and Trent and I got pretty tired of their internal whining and despair. I mean, just speak your thoughts people! Weeks and months of holing up in your own thoughts, claiming a desire to make your marriage work but not doing anything differently than what you’ve been doing all along, gets quite wearing. Once they both start learning how to have conversations with one another, things got better. Imagine that. [eyeroll]
There is also a pretty decent amount of talking about marital intimacy and inferred intimate scenes. In fact, it’s a bit of a theme throughout the book. And here’s the thing: I can appreciate the massive hurdle that must have been for couples in “forced” marriages. I don’t think it’s wrong for that theme to have played a part in the book. But it felt like a significant theme rather than a side note and it was slightly uncomfortable. There are no details or specifics, so no concerns on that score, but in one instance in particular, enough is inferred that if one understands how the entire act plays out, the imagination can well take over and provide details aplenty. I would still classify this as clean, but the theme of marital intimacy and desire for children is definitely strong.
Trent annoyed me for at least 3/4 of the book. He seemed so wishy-washy and I couldn’t ever tell what he was thinking because he changed his mind every 17.4 seconds! Very annoying. Adelaide wasn’t much better. I think for the time period (and considering her familial history [which, by the way, her family is terrible!], it’s a little understandable why she would hold back as much as she did. But I still wished she would have had a little more gumption and asked Trent some of the questions she was plagued with! Gosh, her life sure would have been easier if she had asked questions rather than sequestering herself to her room and feeling sorry for herself.
I guess, ultimately, where I think I was meant to feel sympathy for the characters I found I was just frustrated. The problems felt drawn out and overdone to me.
The final quarter of the book was very cute and sweet and romantic. Finally the characters came to themselves and acted mature. Actually, they finally acted like the people they said they were all along. The first two of this series were definitely preferred to me and now I’m curious how the fourth will pan out.
AUDIOBOOK REVIEW: Read by Charlotte Anne Dore: as with the previous book, this isn’t my favorite reader. The consonants are too precise and doesn’t allow for natural flow of the narrative.
I was kind of excited to see Trent’s story. I loved the goofy brother. And now I love him just a little bit more. The prologue of An Uncommon Courtship shows Trent as a young boy spending one more memorable moment with his father before the Duke’s unexpected death. I appreciated getting a peek at their father. He’s mentioned by the characters several times within the series, but this prologue gave me a better idea of who he was by the way he interacted with his two sons.
As far as marriage of convenience stories go, An Uncommon Courtship wasn’t my favorite. BUT, it was good and well done. I laughed so hard at times as poor Trent and Adelaide tried to navigate their unexpected marriage, and other times I felt the pain with them when things didn’t go exactly as planned. I was rooting from them from the very first scene, and I’ll admit I began to love Trent a little more each time he showed his protectiveness toward Adelaide.
I also liked the discussion about love as much more than a feeling. You don’t get that in a lot of romance novels, especially these days. And there were some aspects of marriage not usually explored in Christian fiction, but I appreciated that Hunter explored them tastefully and honestly.
Check out my review of the entire series at https://justjenniferpurcell.com/2019/04/26/just-read-hawthorne-house-series/.
Not a clean read.
An Uncommon Courtship shares the story of two people who are dealing with unforeseen circumstances in a marriage. Both have their own ideas of courtship, love and how married people should respond to each other. Trent and Adelaide try to make the best of the situation. Can love develop over time? This is a sweet story of learning to love and trust. I recommend this story to anyone who enjoys a good clean love story. I received a copy of this book from the author and publisher and this is my personal opinion of the story.
This was a great sweet and clean, but by no means boring, read. It was refreshing for the male lead, Trent, to be neither a womanizer or a reformed lecher! Rather, it was interesting twist to have him be a man who had hopes and dreams of falling in love and marrying instead of being a confirmed bachelor who had to be convinced otherwise. I also enjoyed seeing the main female character, Adelaide, gain confidence and grow a spine as the story progressed. Love the interactions of the Hawthorne family – this whole book series has been so entertaining!