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

Tokens of Love - Anthology

This is an anthology with a Valentine's Day theme. I've read many with a Christmas theme but this was my first with this theme. The short stories are:

Mary Balogh, "The Substitute Guest."
A young lady is invited to a house party during St Valentine's. It's actually a rendez vous for lovers to meet but when one of the women declines the invitation a vicar's sister is invited in her place and wins the heart of the gentleman selected to court her for the weekend.
It was a nice story the hero was a bit bland, either we needed a stronger hero or a bigger story. 4

Margaret Westhaven, "Saint Valentine's Eve."
A second chance at love story when lovers separated 10 years before meet again. It's set in India which his different and the heroine was a young girl shipped to Calcutta for find a husband (I was curious to know if indeed this was common). A pleasant story but nothing to make it stand out. 4

Carol Proctor, "The London Swell."
Hero travels to the country to court and propose the girl he wants to marry. There he meets an eccentric young girl who mistakes him for someone else and speaks about how she is going to marry the London gentleman that is due to arrive. Not badly written but the heroine was too childish. 3.5

Sheila Walsh, "Dear Delight."
Another second chance at love. The hero and the heroine were separated 10 years before when her father rejected his suit and he left without telling her why so she things he abandoned her. They meet again at a christening of one of her nephews but there's a woman determined to separate them again. It was nice and the strong point for me was that the author cleared the misunderstanding pretty early. 4

Sandra Heath, "February Falsehoods."
And the anthology ends with another second chance at love. This time the heroine has jilted the hero after finding out he had a mistress and her friend and her beau (the hero's friend) try to bring them together again. Not bad but nothing memorable. 4

Grade: 4/5 with the Balogh and the Walsh being the favourites. Although nothing really stands out this is the kind of anthology I save for a rainy day, a comfort read.