![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
militantlyromanticIf you don't need a ton of sex in your romance, like main characters who are strong, understandable people but also still growing into themselves, and complicated family vibes, hit this book up. It was pretty much perfect for me.
Our main female character, Jemma, is the granddaughter of a duke, but when the book starts, she, her mother, and her sister, are running a bakery in the nascent states. She has just had sex with a guy she expects to ask her to marry him. He immediately effs off to London, and before Jemma can even process that betrayal, her mother dies. Her mother who raised her to believe all men are asshats and love isn't real because Jemma's father abandoned Jemma's mother after said mother left her family to be with him. (The Duke did not approve.)
We spend the book mostly in Jemma's POV (although there is a hefty enough dose of the male-lead, Phillip, not to feel like we have no idea what's going on with him), and she's a wonderfully flawed narrator.
After their mother's death, struggling, the girls have very few good options, and one is to contact their grandfather, who immediately comes to collect them and puts a number of conditions on supporting them, including that the girls marry. Jemma, who knows she's "spoiled goods" is aware this is a problem, but decides she can convince her grandfather she's unweddable and things will be fine.
Unfortunately, her grandfather's choice is...less than ideal. (He's terrible.) Meanwhile, she's met Phillip sort of by accident while horse-racing to prove lack of suitability for marriage. And Phillip is a cinnamon roll all the way. He's trying desperately to maintain his mother's lifestyle and not let her worry, even as he's drowning under the weight of the failing estate his father left. Phillip would like to get a job, thanks, but he's aware that his mom would lose her mind, so he has accepted that he needs to marry for money. He can't pretend excitement about it, though, and is ethically bothered by all the implications of doing so.
As Phillip uses his connections to try and find a workable bride--a search made hilarious by facts we maybe suspect early on, but find out for sure later--he and Jemma keep getting thrown together by the vagaries of society living. At the same time, Jemma begins to have the idea that her mother's version of the story of her life might have been a tad bit biased, and perhaps her grandfather isn't the monster she's made him out to be.
If this book has a major flaw, it's the "climactic blow up" which feels put in for the sake of drama, more than because it's a necessary hump to get past. Indeed, they've gotten over several external obstacles at that point. This book was earlier in Johnstone's writing career, though, and there are certain genre expectations that I think she's still playing to. Given the strength of the overall book, I'm very much looking forward to reading more of her later works.
Our main female character, Jemma, is the granddaughter of a duke, but when the book starts, she, her mother, and her sister, are running a bakery in the nascent states. She has just had sex with a guy she expects to ask her to marry him. He immediately effs off to London, and before Jemma can even process that betrayal, her mother dies. Her mother who raised her to believe all men are asshats and love isn't real because Jemma's father abandoned Jemma's mother after said mother left her family to be with him. (The Duke did not approve.)
We spend the book mostly in Jemma's POV (although there is a hefty enough dose of the male-lead, Phillip, not to feel like we have no idea what's going on with him), and she's a wonderfully flawed narrator.
After their mother's death, struggling, the girls have very few good options, and one is to contact their grandfather, who immediately comes to collect them and puts a number of conditions on supporting them, including that the girls marry. Jemma, who knows she's "spoiled goods" is aware this is a problem, but decides she can convince her grandfather she's unweddable and things will be fine.
Unfortunately, her grandfather's choice is...less than ideal. (He's terrible.) Meanwhile, she's met Phillip sort of by accident while horse-racing to prove lack of suitability for marriage. And Phillip is a cinnamon roll all the way. He's trying desperately to maintain his mother's lifestyle and not let her worry, even as he's drowning under the weight of the failing estate his father left. Phillip would like to get a job, thanks, but he's aware that his mom would lose her mind, so he has accepted that he needs to marry for money. He can't pretend excitement about it, though, and is ethically bothered by all the implications of doing so.
As Phillip uses his connections to try and find a workable bride--a search made hilarious by facts we maybe suspect early on, but find out for sure later--he and Jemma keep getting thrown together by the vagaries of society living. At the same time, Jemma begins to have the idea that her mother's version of the story of her life might have been a tad bit biased, and perhaps her grandfather isn't the monster she's made him out to be.
If this book has a major flaw, it's the "climactic blow up" which feels put in for the sake of drama, more than because it's a necessary hump to get past. Indeed, they've gotten over several external obstacles at that point. This book was earlier in Johnstone's writing career, though, and there are certain genre expectations that I think she's still playing to. Given the strength of the overall book, I'm very much looking forward to reading more of her later works.
