Reviewer: Tracy The Temptation of Lady Serena by Ella Quinn
Series: The Marriage Game #3
Also in this series: A Kiss for Lady Mary
Publisher: Kensington
Publication Date: January 14, 2014
Format: eARC
Source: NetGalley
Point-of-View: Third
Genres: Historical Romance
Pages: 356
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Series Rating:
Ella Quinn's bachelors in The Marriage Game series are charming and cunning when it comes to the ways of love--until the right woman captures their unsuspecting hearts. . .
Custom-made gowns. . .nights at the theater. . .and a host of eligible bachelors. Accustomed to living a quiet life in the Scottish Borderlands, Lady Serena Weir has never had any of these luxuries. But when Serena's brother demands she finally have a Season in London, she's thrust into a glamorous world she's only dreamed of. . .
Robert, Viscount Beaumont, remembers all too well what it feels like to be in love. That is why he must keep his distance from Serena. He's only felt his pulse stir the way it does now when he made the mistake of loving the wrong woman once before. Yet the more he strives to resist his feelings, the nearer he is to falling under Serena's seductive spell. . .
Lady Serena gets sent to London from Scotland for a season when she is 26 years old. Her parents had passed and she’d taken care of the family estate and dependents since she was 14 years old and her brother was off being a soldier. When he returns with his new wife, the wife gets rid of Serena by sending her off to London.
Serena is not sure how to handle herself as she’s never been in any kind of society. Luckily she has an aunt and a cousin from her mother’s side of the family who are sponsoring her and getting her ready. She may not have the social wiles, but her kindness and innocence shine through and make her the talk of the ton.
Robert, Viscount Beaumont, is struck by Serena’s beauty from the moment he sees her. He had eschewed ton events for years but he now attends as many as possible, just to dance and stare at Serena. He is charming and soon Serena is in love with him. He wants her desperately, but has stated that he’ll never love again (after a fiasco when he was a young man). Robert decides he’ll ask Serena to marry him but before that happens, he compromises her. Serena is pissed off and says she’ll not marry him because he doesn’t love her. She then leads him on a chase, but in the end he realizes he loves her.
This would have been a great end to this story and would have happened about 50% of the way through the book. But no, the book continued on for another 200 pages and gave us another romance, local country children getting kidnapped and the resolution of that, as well as an old bed partner of Robert’s causing trouble. It was ridiculous. If we could have just had the story wrap up after Robert told Serena he loved her I probably would have given this book a better rating. Unfortunately with all of the unnecessary parts that were added into the book, the rating didn’t dip down, it took a huge dive.
I did love Serena in this book. She was kind, generous and all that was good. You would think that she would have been over the top, but she wasn’t. She just knew her business when it came to running an estate, and she wasn’t afraid to tell Robert her thoughts. Robert was a bit of an ass at first, but he settled down and became a good man. I was happy for the two of them.
The romance was worth reading in this book but the rest…not so much. I can’t recommend this one unless you plan on just reading the first half of the book.
Rating: 2 out of 5
The Marriage Game
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