He is but a pawn in someone else’s game. With no choice but to do the prince regent’s bidding, Justin Wilde must marry—marry!—a woman not of his own choosing. And for the man notoriously referred to as the Bad Baron, marriage is the last thing he wishes to consider. Especially when the bride has the beauty of an angel but the devil’s own temper….
Stunned to find herself married to a stranger, Alina vows to uncover the reason behind their forced union. Yet the more time she spends with her roguish husband, the less the past seems to matter. But when the truth behind their wedding at last emerges, will it strengthen their fragile bond—or shatter their lives forever?
Justin Wilde isn’t happy with the Prince Regent in general but when the man tells Justin that he has to marry a foreign woman he’s stunned. He really doesn’t have a choice though since he has an agreement with the Prince and must abide by it. You see 8 years prior he was in a duel and killed the man under strange circumstances. He was exiled and though he had been working for the crown as an assassin it took eight long years before he was pardoned and could return to England, the land he loved. Part of the pardon was that he would pretty much be at the Prince’s beck and call.
Now he’s to marry this woman and he’s told that he needs to keep her safe from harm as there’s someone out to kill her. When he meets Alina he is knocked speechless. If he didn’t know any better he’d say it was love at first sight but after talking to her just a couple of times he decides to protect her from all harm and makes some crazy decisions regarding their marriage, his life and the Prince Regent.
Now the story, for me, started off in a abrupt manner. I was liking Justin just fine until he met Alina and had only talked to her twice when he went off half cocked to talk to the Prince. I didn’t understand this at all and even though I had only met Justin briefly it seemed deeply out of character for him. Now, that being said the abruptness of the first part of the book soon faded into a pretty great story between Alina and Justin. Justin was so very hard inside – even though he tried to act the fool on the outside – and Alina saw right through it from the start. She seemed quite child-like at first but soon started moving into more of an intelligent woman. She really tried to bring out the true Justin and I liked seeing the two of them together. It was a pretty intense affair between the two of them even though they were separated from time to time in the book.
The suspense part of the story was pretty confusing at times, I must admit, but I think I liked it all the more because of its lack of simplicity.
Overall I really liked the book and think I’ll read more from this author in the future (this was my first time reading Kasey Michaels).
Rating: 4 out of 5
Interesting review, Tracy!! I have a bunch of Ms Michaels historicals in my TBR pile, but never read them… See, I discover her as a contemporary author and then wanted to read more of her and so got her historicals.
Are you going to read the other books – it's a series right? I've seen the covers at the bookstore…
*waves weakly*
Nath – Nope, never a dull moment with me and my reviews! lol I figured it was a series after the fact but I may be tempted to read about some other characters that were mentioned in the book. I'd like to try her contemporaries too – did you like them? Were there any that stood out to you?
Chris – Do you need sustenance? Why are you waving so weakly? Did the m/f historical knock you for a loop? lol
M/f, historicals, long day, snow…