A review by bibliofrenzy
A Contracted Spouse for the Prizefighter by Alice Coldbreath

emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No

5.0

I normally shy away from historical romance (hate closed door and this did have closed door but didn’t take too much from the story) since I’m in my dark romance era but alas! The reading challenge required this genre and here I was not too happy about it… I was really hoping to use book one of these series on this but I thought eeh I’ll just grin and bear on this one… and boy am I glad I did!!!

The gist, Dora (Theodora), a stage actress who’s a plain Jane (loooooooooved this fact, tired of the “drop dead gorgeous in almost every book 🙄) now has to work as a maid in her own house because of her failing family theatre company. Her brother doesn’t think she’s good enough to be a stage actress and also really, not pretty enough.

Dora goes to see Clem Dabney, a former prizefighter and current musical theatre owner and not raised “gentleman” with a marriage proposal that will give Clem shares in her family business…

I love how Clem wasn’t jealous of her success and how supportive he was… loved how Dora was a good person with examples! We weren’t told she was good but no actions following that, it’s usually selfish and self serving… not this character… she actually cared for others…

Both of these characters weren’t the burns for the times and I think that’s what made them so enjoyable… almost everyone in this book was lovely 😃
Makes me want to look into other books by this author but I’m definitely going to look for a physical book for this one. I enjoyed it too much!