I Heart Romance

I bought this book on a whim because I loved the blurb. Plus, the title was so catchy! I also slightly remember reading the first book of the series but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember the details.

The story starts of pretty good. We get to met Annalise, the bastard daughter of one of the richest men in London who just wed a Duke. They go off on their honeymoon on a barge with only the Duke’s valet for company. Anxious for her wedding night, Annalise doesn’t realize that her new husband plans to kill her until it’s too late and he smothers her with a pillow and throws her overboard and left for dead. She is found miles away by Owen Crawford, the Earl of McDowell who just came back from the war trying to forget his past. He rescues her and meets a band of gypsies on the way who reluctantly agrees to help them. Annalise comes to about a week later and decides not to tell Own who she really is. He brings her to recuperate in his London town house and starts to fall for her. All is revealed when Annalise was seen by the Duke in town.

I immediately connected with Annalise and I thought she was a brave young woman trying to forget that she was killed and left for dead by her new husband. I also thought that adding an affliction or imperfection, if you will, was an awesome idea. She fell when she was a child and broke her leg which apparently did not heal right but after she broke her leg again when the Duke threw her overboard, the gypsy allowed it to heal and set it right so she wasn’t limping anymore. I did think that this was a little bit far-fetched since it had been years since she broke her leg and it would be a little bit impossible for it to be completely healed minus the limp, right?

I also liked Owen at first and thought that he had a lot of baggage on him, especially since he came back from the war. Unfortunately, I thought his avoiding and ignoring Anna was a little too much and I felt that it was him playing hard to get. Which brings me to the point that it was Annalise who was doing all the seducing! Don’t get me wrong and I am all for a girl who goes after what she wants but at a certain point in the story, it was getting too much.

The end was a little too….non-thrilling. I would have expected more to happen to the Duke and would have wanted him to get his comeuppance very violently and by Owen or her but no, it was this debutante who wanted him all for himself! eeek! There wasn’t much drama in that area!

All in all, I thought it was an OK read and it is not something that I may read again, though.