Tracy’s review of Unforgivable by Joanna Chambers
Gil Truman has eyes only for the beautiful Tilly—until he is forced to marry plain, sickly Rose Davenport to reclaim the lands his father foolishly gambled away. After a disastrous wedding night tainted with his bitterness, he deposits Rose at his remote Northumbrian estate, soothing his guilt with the thought that she need never lay eyes on him again.
Five years after the mortifying wedding night that destroyed all her romantic fantasies, Rose is fed up with hearing second- and third-hand reports of Gil’s philandering ways. She is no longer the shy, homely girl he left behind, but a strong, confident woman who knows how to run an estate. And knows what she wants—her husband, back in their marriage bed.
Gil doesn’t recognize the bold, flirtatious woman he meets at a ball, with or without her mask. Yet he is bewitched and besotted, and their night together is the most passionate he has ever known.
But when he confesses his sins to the beautiful stranger, the truth rips open the old wounds of their blighted history. Threatening any hope of a future together.
Rose Davenport is just 17 and is only weeks into recovering from a bout of chickenpox that almost killed her. She’s thin to the point of bony, she’s got incredibly short hair as the doctors cut it to relieve her fever and she still has scars on her face that haven’t healed. When her father takes her calling to a man who may end up being her husband she’s not thrilled. She knows he won’t give up though so she agrees. The man she meets, Gilbert Truman, Viscount Waite, is a charming man. He’s just 22 and though his father and brother sit like stones in the parlor, Rose and Gilbert hit it off and Rose has a wonderful time. She agrees to the marriage.
Gilbert, after meeting Rose, is called into his father’s office and given the news. His father has gambled away all of the unentailed estates and since those estates are what keeps the entailed estates running Gilbert realizes the magnitude of his father’s screw up – they’re ruined. His father, the earl, tells Gilbert that Rose’s father is the one that won the estates and is willing to give them back to them as a dowry for Rose if Gilbert is willing to marry her. Gilbert is in love with someone else so he’s not happy about having to marry Rose but he knows there’s no alternative.
The couple get married and Rose soon realizes that Gilbert is not the charming man she thought she married. He’s cold and aloof and she sees that he’s disgusted with physical person. Her dreams of having a real marriage are soon squashed and after only a week or so of being married Rose is left in Northumbria while Gilbert takes off for London. Every year for 5 years Rose does her duty and invites Gilbert for Christmas and every year his secretary declines for him. Rose thought she’d be happy without her husband but she wants a real marriage. Now that she’s a healthy, beautiful woman again she heads to London to try and reconcile.
Rose’s father’s mistress talks her into attending a masked ball to try and feel out her reception by Gilbert. Gilbert is immediately taken with the woman he meets at the ball and finds her beyond beautiful. Rose is stunned that Gil doesn’t recognize her at all and when the time comes to give her name she lies and says she’s someone else. When Gil finds out months later that Rose lied his beyond mad. Between Rose’s deception and Gil’s public philandering can the couple make something of their marriage?
This is a difficult review for me to write for several different reasons. I “knew” the author as an online acquaintance via her blog and the DIK blog before she became published. Knowing how lovely she wrote when she gave us her blog posts I had no doubt that I would like her books. Her first book was wonderful and I couldn’t say enough about it (if you haven’t read it yet you’re missing out) so was anxious to read this book as well. Now comes the hard part…while I loved the writing, I didn’t love the story and that for me makes it difficult to write a review.
The ups and downs of this story had me both on the edge of my seat and frustrated. Gil was so very charming when we first met him but that charm left and it just never reappeared. He treated Rose horribly and even when he knew he was treating her horribly he couldn’t stop himself from digging the verbal knife deeper. When he finally fell in love with her it didn’t stop him from acting like an ass and frankly at the end when he was to be redeemed he fell very short, imho. He need to grovel a hell of a lot more and I can only pray that in that fictional world he’s still groveling.
Rose put up with a lot of crap from Gil and still held her ground. She was a strong and competent who yes, made a mistake when she told Gil she was someone else, but truly that was her biggest mistake (well, besides marrying the man in the first place). Though she could have definitely been more communicative with him and told him how she really felt earlier I could understand her reluctance to do so. Every time she tried to talk to him he practically turned it around to somehow make it her fault.
The angst in this book is about 9 on the Richter scale. I do wish that the couple could have started to reconcile sooner as they spent most of the book at odds with each other. As I said – Gil needed to grovel a whole hell of a lot more for me to think he had been redeemed.
Now the writing in this story was really great. It drew me in from page one and I literally didn’t put the book down until I was done with it (that includes staying up late on a work night to finish it!). The writing was compelling and I got completely emotionally involved in the story. The marriage was a hot mess but the way it was written made me want to read more and more. I loved that about the book.
In the end it was a hard book for me to rate.
I give it a 3.5 out of 5.
3 for the story and 4 for the writing
You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place
This book is available from Samhain Publishing. You can buy it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher for an honest review.
I felt just the same way, Tracy, and ended up giving the same rating.