Customer Reviews

An Unsuitable Match (Signet Regency Romance)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I always love books with recurring characters, and this series of linked books from Patricia Oliver is one of my favourite of the type. Here, she's surpassed herself with a wonderful, funny and out of the ordinary heroine, and a hero I fell in love with on the first page I encountered him.

Serena is no blushing debutante, and never wanted to go to London and join in the Marriage Mart in the first place. And when she meets Guy Hawkhurst, the Duke of Wolverton, all her prejudices about drunken, idle wastrels are confirmed. And she certainly leaves an impression on him when she gives him a bloody nose!

And yet, from this inauspicious start they become friends. At first their relationship is based on challenges, neither one wanting to back down; Hawk, egged on by his even more cynical friend Monroyal, can't resist baiting Serena. But then Serena's life falls apart around her, and he finds he can't leave her to cope alone....

From there on, the book becomes less of an amusing romp and very much a heartwrenching love story. There are some unforgettable scenes in this book, which I won't spoil for anyone who hasn't read it - buy it and wallow in them yourself!

Patricia Oliver is a master at writing books about men with 'pasts' - they usually have some sort of bad experience in their childhood, or have suffered trauma, and that influences their outlook on life in general, on women and on marriage. This is the case for most of the heroes of her novels, and is certainly true in respect of Hawk. But she is also brilliant at giving her heroes a heroine who can help them to heal and teach them how to love.

I read this book three times within a fortnight of buying it, and still re-read it regularly. It's a classic!

I've really enjoyed Patricia Oliver's series of linked books, each dealing with one member of a group of rakehells and how they succumb, not altogether willingly, to the joys of romance and marriage.

This one is one of the best. Serena is a perfect heroine: no simpering miss, but a strong-willed woman who is not on the catch for a husband. Nor is she particularly beautiful, and as her father is deeply in debt she's destined to be an ape-leader.

Guy Hawkhurst, the Duke of Wolverton, is a drunken, dissolute aristocrat; the first time he meets Serena she punches his nose! But they become friends of a kind; then a tragic twist in the story brings them closer together.

A must-read for Oliver fans.

Only one question - why has she not revisited this group of friends since she wrote Monroyal's story? There is certainly scope!

Great cast of characters and entertaining story. "Double Deception" is also a very good read. I'll be on the lookout for the rest of her books.

Overall a good book. Patricia Oliver delivers, yet again, a well-written traditional Regency with characters that are fleshed out and dialog that reads authentically. The points of view are well done and detailed. A plain and countrified nobody, Serena can be a sharp-tongued shrew at times, and I cringed at some of the things she said to the duke. However, they forge an unlikely friendship as the duke initially seeks her out for the amusement he garners from their verbal sparring, then decides to play knight-in-shining-armor when difficulties at home arise for Serena. I would rate it a smidge higher, but something strikes me as very abrupt in the duke's "reformation" after his years of dissipation following his twin brother's death (and Hawk's ascension to the title). Overall, a 3.5 star read.

FROM THE BACK OF THE BOOK:

HER SCANDALOUS SUITORS

Serena Millbanks might be an innocent country miss, but she was well aware that London was alive with libertines. Forewarned was forearmed, and she was quite sure that she would be more than a match for the amorous advances of these shameless seducers.

Serena was not prepared, however, to have not only one but four of the premier rakes of the realm pursuing her. There was the enigmatic Lord Monroyal, the dashing Sir David Laughton, the devastating Anthony Dalton, and leading the pack, the scandalous but dazzlingly attractive Major Guy Hawkhurst, Duke of Wolverton. With each of these gentlemen offering his own version of love, and the duke stirring dangerous desire, Serena had to choose whether to escape into a marriage without love or lose her virtue along with her heart...

I have read some good books where a former "rake" is reformed to become a likeable, lovable hero. This isn't one of them. The hero is a drunken wastrel who is tortured by memories of his wartime past. But, he isn't a worthy hero who was honorable,did his wartime duties, and then had difficulty dealing with his memories. He was a womanizing soldier who was derelict to duty. He doesn't truly reform in his attitudes--he just becomes "respectable" due to his love for the heroine, which isn't very credible. When the heroine first met him, he was drunk and throwing up all over the place. Not very romantic, to me anyway. Unfortunately, I didn't like him any better by the end of the book. I didn't think he had any redeeming qualities, and I thought the heroine was a weak-willed miss who was attracted by lust, but not by love. I really did want to like this book, but I just couldn't like the characters or believe the supposed changes in them. I won't be trying any more by this author.