The Perfect Husband (Zebra Regency Romance)

Rating:
Summary: fails as a stand-alone book
Review: The book, while quite readable, has two central problems--a boring main romance and too many characters.

1. The main romance starts well. The two main characters, Lillian and Tony, seem to have a connection in the beginning. When they are forced into marriage (the how is covered in other reviews), we're supposed to believe that he is utterly convinced she is nothing but a featherhead. Lillian becomes guilt-ridden and withdrawn, Tony becomes resentful, and they spend the rest of the book being uneasy around each other and complimenting each other on how nice and caring the other is.

(Given the premise, there is understandably no steamy sex scenes or necking.)

2. This book is #4 in a series of 6. This setup works terribly. There are much too many characters to keep track of in a 200-page novel. 6 guy friends, 4 wives, a tiger, 10 noble friends and family, plus noble extras and a couple of servants. And the extra characters aren't making cameos. We're supposed to care about over 15 of them, plus the overarching plotlines. Doing a series of 6 is a great marketing ploy, but it would have served the stories better to have structured them as an epic or a series of 3 larger novels. The large cast of characters is a more realistic reflection of our own lives, but when we're peeking into someone else's for a couple of hours, we simply cannot care for that many people so soon.

If you're reading the series and already know the characters, you will find the book reasonably enjoyable. There's no reason to read this book as a standalone though.

Rating:
Summary: Delicious regency romance
Review: The Perfect Husband was an excellent adventure -- the hero who wanted to marry for love but was thwarted, the heroine who trapped the wrong man, the white tiger, and the gaggle of friends from previous novels were all enjoyable aspects. The characterization was excellent. And if one puts aside the oft-questioned workings of the tiger as a plot-point and possibly more-than-tiger being, it can become quite comical.

This book is not the first in the series, but it is easily enjoyable as it is. Though the flock of marrieds that appears as the book progresses is a bit confusing at first, in the end it is nothing more than an enticement for the reader to track down the other novels in the sequence.

Personal Note:
I do not read many straight regency romances. I would not recognize a historical inaccuracy if it was circled in red on the page. And, I like (and this is one of the main reasons I greatly enjoyed this book) series where there are links between the heros and heroines, and where the "visiting" of old friends makes you feel like you know everyone. This book, with its host of recurring characters and cute twist of a tiger singlehandedly had me picking up straight regencies again.

Rating:
Summary: The Perfect Husband
Review: When Lady Lillian Temple discovers that her father has foolishly speculated away all his wealth, she decides that a life of genteel poverty is not for her or her young brother, and so decides to entrap an eligible bachelor into marriage. She carefully selects the dashing Lord Melwin, a man of wealth and some political standing -- Lady Lillian has decided that she would rather like leading the life of a political hostess. Unfortunately for Lady Lillian, Lord Melwin leaves the house party on the very night she has decided to brazenly carry out her plan, and gives his room to his best friend, Lord Anthony Wendover. Wendover is also a man of some wealth but is more a fashion arbiter than a political animal. Poor Lady Lillian finds herself compromising the wrong man, and walking down the aisle with someone who seems to dislike her a great deal!

Lord Anthony Wendover had always believed he would marry for love. His parents' wonderful marriage have been an example of what he would like his own marriage to have been. And now he finds himself married to a conniving young woman, who on top of it all has a tendre for his best friend! However his friends and his parents urge him to try and get to know his wife, and to make his marriage work. The burning question then is if Wendover can look past his anger and disappointment in order to make this hasty marriage work.

"The Perfect Husband" is a rather goodish read. I felt quite sorry for Lady Lillian, who had no one to turn to for help, as well as for Lord Anthony who saw his dream of marrying for love go up in smoke. Both characters are somewhat well developed, and I quite liked the manner in which Jeanne Savery built on this theme of a married couple getting to know each other from the very beginning and attempting to make their marriage work. I only had two caveats: Lady Lillian's real character and motivations only seemed to come to the fore when she was with her best friend, Elizabeth Browne. Unfortunately, Miss Browne does not figure into this novel very much. Wendover's friends figure a lot more but they do not throw as much light onto his character and motivations as Miss Browne did for Lady Lillian. The second caveat I had dealt with the entire Sahib motif. Sahib is a tiger who seems to enjoy the role of cupid. I found the whole last bit of the novel where the tiger more or less forced the couple to spend time alone with each other too contrived. Anthony and Lillian were already beginning to like, respect, and feel the beginnings of love for each other. There really was no need for Sahib to have interfered.

All in all "The Perfect Husband" is quite a good read, especially because of it's warm hearted and gallant heroine.