Scan barcode
A review by semiresponsive
The Marriage Contract by Cathy Maxwell
3.0
I absolutely flew through the audio version of this book - and it was fine. Good story (good enough that I listened while cooking & eating dinner... and then for the rest of the evening). The romance genre generally begets predictable stories. That's fine and one of the reasons we love them! Person A meets Person B, they have a reason to dislike each other/not want to be together/resist attraction, they fall anyway, get ripped apart, and then come back together for the climax (often including an actual climax), and voila - romance novel! I love it. If I didn't, I wouldn't have read so many!
One of my biggest romance pet-peeves, though, was perfectly illustrated in this novel... couples fall madly, deeply in love WAY TOO FAST. In this book, if I heard right, the whole thing takes two weeks ! I enjoy stories so much more when the relationship, when the feelings, are really earned.
So, this book, while good, wasn't exactly the best fit for me. I'm discovering that many romance novels - though I love the genre so, so much - really aren't because there's not enough space in 350 pages for the kind of character development I'm looking for.
Our heroine is probably the most well developed character in the book but, but that isn't saying much. The hero pulls some pretty crappy stuff, including mucking out the barn in one of the few remaining dresses she owns in the name oftrying to make her leave by choice rather than sending her back to London, since she had no where to go . She forgives him for this bad behavior very quickly. Also, he kills two guys in the span of two days and there are exactly two sentences of emotional fallout.
The sugary-sweet ending didn't work for me because it wasn't ever earned. But it did work appropriately for the story. Also of note, this is the third book of a trilogy. You absolutely don't need to read the first two. However, the epilogue of this book is the three ladies, two from the first books and then our heroine, meeting up, meeting each other's husbands/kids, and talking about what they've learned about love. I can only assume they had a speculative conversation near the beginning of book one. But this was wasted on me not having read the first two books.
Overall, I enjoyed it enough to know that if I ever need a way to pass an evening or two, I would probably be entertained by another of this author's books. But I'd also probably feel like a lot of stones were left unturned.
One of my biggest romance pet-peeves, though, was perfectly illustrated in this novel... couples fall madly, deeply in love WAY TOO FAST. In this book, if I heard right, the whole thing takes
So, this book, while good, wasn't exactly the best fit for me. I'm discovering that many romance novels - though I love the genre so, so much - really aren't because there's not enough space in 350 pages for the kind of character development I'm looking for.
Our heroine is probably the most well developed character in the book but, but that isn't saying much. The hero pulls some pretty crappy stuff, including mucking out the barn in one of the few remaining dresses she owns in the name of
The sugary-sweet ending didn't work for me because it wasn't ever earned. But it did work appropriately for the story. Also of note, this is the third book of a trilogy. You absolutely don't need to read the first two. However, the epilogue of this book is the three ladies, two from the first books and then our heroine, meeting up, meeting each other's husbands/kids, and talking about what they've learned about love. I can only assume they had a speculative conversation near the beginning of book one. But this was wasted on me not having read the first two books.
Overall, I enjoyed it enough to know that if I ever need a way to pass an evening or two, I would probably be entertained by another of this author's books. But I'd also probably feel like a lot of stones were left unturned.