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Rating: Summary: Trite and slight - with glimmerings Review: I cannot help but agree with all the remarks already made regarding this very slight tale. Julius, Lord Claredon and Victoria Mallory are too much the caricatures, the cardboard cutouts, to be anything much more than irritating. He is more interesting than her by a whisker. Her petulance is just too much. A nice juicy murder with her as victim? There is a good deal of charm in the author's writing, and her stories are often entertaining. Alas not here.
Rating: Summary: a brilliant end to a charming trilogy Review: When the rakish Lord Claredon is found in Miss Victoria Mallory's bedroom (he had made his way into the room thinking that it was her cousin's), they are forced to marry in order to avert a scandal. It result is not a happy one. Victoria had made up her mind to marry the gentle and romantic Thomas Stice, and angry and bitter about her thwarted dreams has been taking her resentment out on her new husband. The situation is hardly any better for Clarendon either. Although something of a rake, Claredon had always believed that he would one day marry the lady of his dreams and lead a happy and contented life as a faithful and worthy husband. But while he is not at all happy about being forced into marriage, neither can he deny that the fiery and strong-minded Victoria does fascinate him quite a lot. But how to get his prickly and angry wife to lower her guard and give their marriage a chance? Help, unexpectedly comes from two different fronts. First, Victoria's old parish priest, Vicar Humbly, comes for a visit, and gently (and subtly) begins to counsel the couple; and secondly, the physical threat from a masked villain pushes Victoria and Claredon to reexamine their relationship, and come to some rather startling conclusions...This is the third and final installment in the Marriage trilogy, and really fits right in with the other two novels in the series. Like "A Proper Marriage" & "A Convenient Marriage," "A Scandalous Marriage" is a thoughtful novel that focuses on an unhappy marriage, but, thanks largely to the authour's light touch, the book is not heavy going at all. Debbie Raleigh does a first rate job of fleshing out the characters of both principal characters and of showing us both Victoria's and Claredon's anger and frustration about the state they find themselves in. I liked that she had Claredon realize first that theirs was a marriage that was meant to be, and that if Victoria were to give things a chance, that they might actually achieve the happiness and contentment that each was looking for. Also nicely done was how the authour paced things so that Victoria's change of heart towards Claredon didn't feel forced or hurried. "A Scandalous Marriage" tied the trilogy up nicely, and lived up to the expectations raised in the first two. Definitely a novel worth the read.
Rating: Summary: predictable Review: Yet another married, virgin bride. It is just not believable that any noble would marry and have no plans to having an heir. Any regency gal who was raised in the Ton would know that is almost her primary role. Both Victoria and Claredon would know that any marriage not comsumated would not be binding or legal. I wait for the day when some smart regency writer will incorporate that certain truth into a much better story. Also - Victoria's constant anger towards Claredon was overdone. He did not know who she was when he went to her room; she was the one using a false name and he did marry her. She was the real problem. Again, regency authors try to make their chits feisty, like that is supposed to make them interesting or smart when all it does is make you want to cringe!
Rating: Summary: fussy and silly Review: Yet another married, virgin bride. It is just not believable that any noble would marry and have no plans to having an heir. Any regency gal who was raised in the Ton would know that is almost her primary role. Both Victoria and Claredon would know that any marriage not comsumated would not be binding or legal. I wait for the day when some smart regency writer will incorporate that certain truth into a much better story. Also - Victoria's constant anger towards Claredon was overdone. He did not know who she was when he went to her room; she was the one using a false name and he did marry her. She was the real problem. Again, regency authors try to make their chits feisty, like that is supposed to make them interesting or smart when all it does is make you want to cringe!
Rating: Summary: predictable Review: Yet another regency with a rake who is obsessed by a wife who is a shrew and vastly immature. There is no earthly reason why Lord Claredon, Julius, would find Victoria mallory attractive. Her personality fails on all accounts. Debbie Raleigh takes great pains to paint a vivid picture of all the attractive physical qualities of Julius. And also lets the reader in on why perhaps Victoria is such a managing female. But no rake of Julius's stamp would take Victoria barring him from the marriage bed. Pages of the story are devoted to Julius lusting after his wife, going crazy at the sway of her walk. How stupid. Again, her personality, her over the top poor treatment of him lends the reader to ask what in the world would he find attractive about her to begin with? She is not an incredible beauty, he notes. Just a silly ploy by the writer to keep her heroine a virgin.
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