Marriage of Convenience #2
Marry in Scandal follows the adventures of Lady Lily Rutherford, who escapes her kidnapper but doesn’t escape the scandal of getting caught with her rescuer, Lord Edward Galbraith. Forming a marriage of convenience to rescue their reputations, Lily and Edward navigate unexpected feelings and share their deepest secrets. The novel is a wonderful blend of humour, romance and scandal.
The narrator, Alison Larkin, almost had me DNF’ing within the first 5 minutes. Lily’s voice was childish, immature, and affected. The narration of everything else was quite good. It took me a few hours to become accustomed to Lily’s voice, but it still brought me out of the story at times. I’m glad I overcame my discomfort because the story was worth listening to!
I’ve read Marry in Scandal before. In 2019, I was on a huge historical romance kick and read this series via eBook. I just realized I’d read them both when I marked them as read on Goodreads, and there was already a date. This is the first time I’ve ever re-read something unintentionally. I would have assumed I didn’t figure it out because the book was bland and unmemorable, but that’s not true. Listening to them on audiobook gave it a new flavour, and while it’s a great, complicated Regency romance, it stays within the well-defined devices of the genre. There isn’t anything notable about the Marriage of Convenience series, but the books are exactly what a Regency romance should be.
I love that Lily can peel back Edward’s layers and force him to face the people from his past. The resolution in the last few chapters is so touching I had a buoyant sense of jubilation that all the heartache was over.
In the second half of Marry in Scandal, where was Lily’s Lady’s maid? Lily is travelling around England without any mention of a Lady’s maid. It struck me then that with Lily’s impediment, a Lady’s maid would have been a perfect agent to help hide it. I swear I’ve read that in other novels. It would make a lot of sense, but it probably wouldn’t have created enough drama.
It was very enjoyable, but I won’t re-read book three now that I’ve realized I’ve read it before. There are other solid Regency romances I still need to read, and this series isn’t so magical that it should get a re-read. I hardly ever re-read, but if I do, it’s because the books were so influential that they still have the same impact over and over again.