Guest Review: A Marriage of Inconvenience by Susanna Fraser

Tracy’s review of A Marriage of Inconvenience by Susanna Fraser

Left orphaned and penniless as a young child, Lucy Jones learned to curb her temper, her passions, and even her sense of humor to placate the wealthy relatives who took her in. She became the perfect poor relation–meek, quiet, and self-effacing. She clings to her self-control because she can control nothing else.


James Wright-Gordon also lost his parents at a young age. But he became a wealthy viscount at fifteen and stepped into full control of his fortune and his birthright as a parliamentary power broker at twenty-one. At twenty-four, he is serenely confident in his ability to control everything in the world that matters to him.


At a house party in the summer of 1809, James quickly discerns Lucy’s carefully hidden spirit and wit and does his best to draw them out. After being caught in a compromising situation, they are obliged to marry. But can two people whose need for control has always been absolute learn to put love first?

Lucy gets engaged to her cousin, Sebastian, whom she’s always admired. He was always the kind one of the family, the one that was most attentive when she went to live with his family after her parents died. Lucy knows that Sebastian doesn’t love her but she thinks herself in love with him so she accepts his proposal. Sebastian’s mother wants the engagement kept a secret because she doesn’t want the limelight taken from Sebastian’s sister, Portia, who is to be married soon. Soon after the proposal Lucy and her family heads off to the country for Portia’s wedding. While there Lucy meets Portia’s soon to be neighbors the Viscount Selsley and his sister, Anna Wright-Gordon. She builds a quick bond with both but with Lord Selsley, James, she finds she can be herself and feels quite comfortable with him.

When Sebastian meets Anna Wright-Gordon he is instantly smitten and finds that he can’t seem to stay away from her. Lucy is quite hurt at the attention that Sebastian dotes on Anna but since no one knows that he and Lucy are engaged she can’t really show her ire.

When the head of Sebastian’s family comes to the country to reveal that he has lost all of the family’s money Lucy is jilted by Sebastian immediately due to the fact that Anna has a boatload of money and can save the family. Lucy and James are then found in a compromising situation and are then wed.

Up until this point in the book I was really loving this story. I didn’t particularly care for Sebastian because I knew there was something hinky going on with him and that he wasn’t the fine upstanding honorable citizen that he portrayed. When he jilted Lucy I just wanted to crawl into my ereader and give him a big ole punch in the jaw. I felt so badly for Lucy but she soon found herself with James which was so much better for her. I loved seeing the friendship and attraction grow between James and Lucy and I wanted them together so much it was ridiculous. But I also really loved Anna and didn’t want that nice young lady stuck with yucky Sebastian (and as the book goes on he gets worse and worse).

But then everyone gets married – first Lucy and James, then Portia and her man and then Sebastian and Anna – and the book kind of changed for me. Lucy, though she seemed a bit cowed by her family and their hatefulness in life, was quite a strong person overall. However, when she married James she seemed to become a different person. Yes, I can imagine that becoming a viscountess when you’ve only ever thought of growing up and being a companion or a governess could be quite daunting, but the way she was handling things didn’t seem to be quite in line with what we knew of her personality prior to the marriage. Also, while I knew from the first part of the book that Lucy had learned to hold her tongue quite a bit (hence being a strong person because of living with mean people) I never thought of her as one that was totally in control. When she married James one of the big things was that she couldn’t let herself orgasm because it felt like she was losing too much control and she had always been in control. I just couldn’t see that from what I knew of her. She lived in a family that basically controlled her life – what she did, what she learned, who she knew, how she dressed – when might she have had control? It was a bit confusing.

Then there is quite a large incident in the story that puts James and Lucy at sixes and sevens and it was a biggie. I can’t tell you what happened cuz that would be too much of a spoiler, but it was enough to possibly tear them apart for good. While I felt that James overreacted a bit I had to remember that though he was a viscount he was only 24 years old! It helped to get me through the rough patch.

In the end I really loved the first part of the book and felt just ok with the second so my rating reflects the middle road. I really liked the author’s voice and will definitely be reading more of her books in the future. I would have loved to have found out more about Anna and Sebastian but after looking at the author’s website I realized that Anna’s story has already been told – which is good for me since I want to know what happened! lol

Rating: 4 out of 5

You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place

This book is available from Carina Press. You can buy it here or here in e-format.

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