Ruined into Marriage
Starting a beautiful journey on the worst possible foot
Another of my favorite branches of historical marriages of convenience are inevitable marriages due to societal “ruination” and all the various circumstances that can lead to that. I like it when one of the characters sets the other up on purpose, I love it when it’s completely mutually not in the plans, I love it all! It’s forced proximity with a fair amount of resentment, a dramatic, incendiary start to a romance.
Tempt Me at Twilight by Lisa Kleypas. Poppy Hathaway pines for a boring, proper son of a Viscount, despite her family’s eccentricities (she just wants a boring guy to love, have kids with, who will leave her alone to read and study), and everything about her third season is going to plan until her sister’s ferret steals a love letter from him (to him? It matters not) and leads her on a merry chase through the hotel her family stays in during the season. The ferret leads her right to a mysterious man who she has a flirty conversation with and who, as it turns out, is the hotel’s owner Harry Rutledge!
Harry immediately decides a few things after meeting the lovely, lively Poppy: 1, she absolutely will not marry this boring other dude, 2, she HAS to marry him, and 3, even though love isn’t real and he will never feel it because he’s Damaged, he’s pretty sure he can make her happy. So he sets a plan in motion that starts with scaring off the other suitor and ends with Poppy and him in a ruinously scandalous position that forces them to get married. The whole family, Poppy included, knows of his machinations to this end by the wedding, so Poppy enters the arrangement fully deciding he will never touch her.
I think you can see where this is going. I’m Too Damaged Harry and sweet, scholarly Poppy have a lot of work to do to find common ground again (common ground that was heavily hinted at in their very first ferret meet cute) and take a chance with their hearts to make this marriage more than simply a formality.
Am I ashamed to say that one of my favorite romance hero tropes is a hero who’s like I’m Too Damaged To Love But Damn If I Won’t Make My Wife Happy Anyways (that’s love you idiot)? No. It’s great. Read this book.
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥
The Devil and the Heiress by Harper St. George. Violet Crenshaw is an American heiress, an aspiring author, and Absolutely Not Getting Married, especially not to the guy her parents sold her to. So she escapes north, with only an earl who inspired one of her characters along for the ride, because he insisted. I’ll be honest I don’t 100% remember how he ends up going with her, but I do know why… because he’s one of them semi-impoverished peers who needs an American heiress’s influx of funds to fix up his crumbling Scottish estate. Though he tells her something else, of course, to gain her trust until he can convince her to marry him OR trick her into getting to Scotland and taking her to the first priest he sees.
Their road trip is full of shenanigans, plus a potentially mortal injury and the hottest kind of plot, a recovery period where one person is stuck in bed and has to put their health and care into the hands of their partner. This book is a CLASSIC road trip kinda tale, with deception and scandal and a headstrong heroine with a hero who’s like “she can’t possibly be THAT headstrong.” Buddy. Pal. Just you wait.
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥
The Heiress Hunt by Joanna Shupe. This is the start of Joanna Shupe’s most recent completed historical series, set in NYC, but I have to say, the thing I like most about it is that it’s the start of the four book long plot to keep Duke whatshisface from marrying anyone but Nellie. I guess I also like that this book’s heroine is a professional tennis player. What I don’t love is the hero of this book, who I think frankly deserves to walk into the sea. However, I might just be having some kind of reaction because ordinarily I love Joanna Shupe and even her most problematic heroes (I’ve read all her mafia books too, for instance!), so until I reread this book at some point, I figured I’d tell y’all about it and see if you had a different view! Because you really do need to read this book before the Lockwood/Nellie one from the link above. Plus it’s a really great example of ruined into marriage.
BRIEFLY, here is our plot. Harrison Archer’s recently deceased father has bankrupted his family, and he has to marry an heiress. Unfortunately, the woman he really wants, his best female friend Maddie (the aforementioned tennis star), is already betrothed to a duke and wants to be his matchmaker. So Maddie throws a house party, half to hang out with her real fiance and half to introduce her friend Harrison to some other heiresses.
So of course, Harrison seduces Maddie through a series of nefarious means and gets them caught making out in the rain by some nosy house guests, and they get married in semi-shame. And that’s just the first third/half of the book! NOW, Harrison must try to win back Maddie’s trust and heart if this marriage is going to be more than a way to keep him financially afloat.
What I do like about this book is that the ruined into marriage bit, similar to the Kleypas book, happens early enough and with enough premeditation from one of the characters, that the characters have time to unpack the bad start and figure out a way to move forward. Similar to accidental pregnancies, they’re best if they happen early enough in the book that the book is ABOUT that, rather than uses it as a final nail in the coffin of love.
Anyways, my main problem with this book is that I don’t think Harrison grovels enough and understands what he’s done wrong (regardless of the happy ending) and I think Maddie lets him off the hook too easily and often. MAKE THEM SUFFER! MORE! I am a monster, I know this, and I do not regret it.
How hot? 🔥🔥
Next week, I’ll be recommending beach reads… AKA books set at the beach.
What should I be reading next? Let me know in the comments!