Fortune's Child by Rachelle Edwards

Read For:

RYOB Challenge

ROR Summer Challenge

Synopsis:

Everyone knew they'd make the perfect match-or perfect enemies. Lord Rossington returned to London to brazenly ask for the hand of the lady he had jilted nine years before. Now all England stood agape, which would falter first, and no one, not even they, knew whether it was love or hate that possessed them..

My Review:

Pretty good "old school" Regency. The story is of the "second chances" storyline. The heroine, broke off her betrothal with the hero nine years before when she found out her father had lost his fortune gambling, though she never shared that with the hero. Fast forward, nine years later, when the two meet again and the hero offers to marry the now spinster heroine-but it's to be a marriage of convienence-as he needs help with his son, who has become terribly behaved after his mother's death six months before.

Overall, the story was good-fast paced, and well written for the period. The hero is very much of the "dark, brooding" variety, and doesn't open up until too late in the book, in my opinion. There's sexual chemistry is between the two, but no passion-this book is pretty much "G" rated in relation to love scenes. That wouldn't have been a problem, but like many romances written in the 80's, the author sadly felt the need to introduce one scene where the hero slaps the heroine late in the book. If it would have occured earlier in the book, I would have quit right there, but it's so late in the book that I went ahead and finished the story, even though that "soured" me on the book after that.

2.5 stars for a pretty good book up until that point.