Customer Reviews

The Husband She Never Knew : Marriage of Inconvenience (Harlequin Superromance No. 1180)

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Thomason's latest book starts out as a fun romantic green card comedy with a clever though misguided heroine and likable hero. It features a cast of memorable secondary characters including a thoroughly lovable pooch. But the book is much more than a fast entertaining read. Half way through, the plot turns to intrigue with a well developed smuggling angle that kept me guessing. If you like a book where the main characters face great obstacles and overcome them with humor and trust, you must read this book.

Okay, as the caption implies, I'm a sucker for romance--and also for the writing of author Cindy Thomason.

THE HUSBAND SHE NEVER KNEW is a clever story about a woman who's made only one mistake in her life--but what a blunder! As a young adult, she marries an immigrant who needs a green card just for the fee that his friends are willing to pay her. (This information gives away nothing, since it is offered in the prologue of the novel.) They part after the ceremony, and they don't see one another again for more than a decade.

She spends that next decade growing up and becoming an art-and-antiques dealer in Florida. It is only when she meets the man of her dreams that she realizes that...oh, wait a minute...she has "forgotten" to get a divorce from the husband she only had met for a single hour, thirteen years earlier.

With the help of a detective and a lawyer, she locates this man in a small Southern town and she personally goes there to deliver divorce papers. Does it go without saying that he is charmed at the very sight of her?

Nonetheless, he agrees to sign the papers after his lawyer approves them, and she returns to Florida, secure in her hopes of marrying Mr. Perfect.

Author Thomason displays a bone-deep knowledge of the antiques business, and she weaves in a fascinating subplot about art smuggling.

This is a charming book, and I can't wait to read the promised sequel.

In 1990 Orlando, the Orange Blossom Diner short order cook arranges for one of his co-workers Vicki Sorenson to marry Irishman Jamie Malone. Vicki will receive money that she desperately needs while Jamie will remain in America avoiding deportation to Belfast and probably prison.

Thirteen years later in Fort Lauderdale, Vicki plans to marry a Massachusetts blueblood. Before she can wed Graham, she must obtain a divorce from her first husband, whom she has seen for the sum of ninety minutes. A detective easily locates Jamie via the Internet and Vicki journeys to Bayberry Cove, North Carolina to end her marriage. She finds James' isolated houseboat off of Pintail Point, but a storm washes away any return trip for now. Sharing his abode, Vicki and Jamie fall in love. However, his fantasy and her dreams are not the same or are they?

THE HUSBAND SHE NEVER KNEW is a solid contemporary romance that at first blush seems trite, but the lead duet and several support players turn the tale into a fine reading experience. The story line contains some intrigue, but for the most part is a straightforward love story between a couple whose marriage leaves both a bit wary and suspicious of the motives of their spouse. Cynthia Thomason turns her Green Card romance into a wonderful story that will please sub-genre fans.

Harriet Klausner