A Highly Respectable Marriage - Sheila Walsh

THE OFFICER’S DAUGHTER

Lovely young Pandora Carlyon was the daughter of a gallant colonel--but now her father was dead, and Pandora was left unprotected in London, far from the battlefields of Europe where she had been raised.

It was up to Pandora to map out a campaign of survival for herself and her two brothers in this strange and scandalous world of English society. It was also up to her to defend her reputation and honour with every weapon at her command when the maddeningly handsome, shockingly notorious Duke of Heron proposed a most unthinkable alliance.

Pandora was about to learn that in love as in war, all was considered fair, every move was fraught with peril, and surrender could be so very tempting...

This book features a young and outspoken heroine and an older jaded rake. It's not that I don't like these types of stories but sometimes it seems to me a bit unbelievable the love story between such different people.

Pandora is an orphan and lives with her brother in the house of her half sister. They are treated like a charity case and since her young brother is always in trouble there's talk of sending him to a severe school. To avoid that Pandora decides to find employment . After a conversation with her godmother, she decides to visit the Duke of Heron who is apparently looking for a governess for his charges. Heron has no idea what Pandora is talking about and thinks she is proposing to become his wife thus creating a misunderstanding and some harsh words are spoken. On learning the truth he finds Pandora and starts to feel attracted to her. His attraction is almost immediate and maybe that is what made it a bit unbelievable to me.

Pandora was a nice girl, very trusting, naive and wanting to help everyone around her while Heron is the consummate rake. In a way I felt he rushed her a bit towards marriage and she might need more time to adjust to marriage, to him and to her new station.

Grade: 3.5/5