May 30, 2020

THE COUNTERFEIT MARRIAGE by Joan Wolf

PUBLISHER: Signet, 2/1980
GENRE: Fiction/Historical Romance
SETTING: England, 1800's
SERIES: Signet Regency Romance #16
AUTHOR SITE: link
MY GRADE: C

SYNOPSIS: Enchantingly beautiful Catherine Renwick had good cause to despise darkly handsome, insufferably arrogant James Pembroke, Earl of Allandale. It was this deplorable man who on a night of wild debauchery caused Catherine to be abducted and brought to him at a country inn. It was he who took her virtue by force, and left her threatened with disgrace. True, he now was willing to make amends by giving her his name in marriage. And equally true, she had no choice but to accept. But Catherine was sure that nothing in the world could erase her hatred for him or her horror of his embrace. Catherine was an innocent no longer--yet she had so much to learn about love and the maddening deceptions of the heart....


MY THOUGHTS: I had high hopes for this but the majority of the story was boring. The beginning and end were good but that's all. Once the incident at the beginning was over with, James and Catherine got along great for the duration of the story. No conflict, no disagreements, no nothing. 

James is twenty-six and Catherine is seventeen. The story spans just over a year but I don't know what year it begins or ends. When James was sober we were told he was remorseful for what he'd done the night before but I didn't feel it. He's a rather bland character.

Catherine was put in a bad situation and dealt with it very well and seemed quite mature for just barely seventeen. We're told they're both in love with each other but I'm not feeling that either. I don't think they were around each other much.

Her cousin Ian, I did like, especially towards the end when his craziness came out to play. He seems to be around her age. He became really angry when he found out why James and Catherine married and couldn't understand why he wasn't asked to marry her instead when that was their plan in the first place. He hatched a plan that didn't work out in the end. That situation wasn't handled in a believable way by James.


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