Never Fall for Your Fiancée (The Merriwell Sisters, #1)
Virginia Heath
The first in a new historical rom-com series, a handsome earl hires a fake fiancée to keep his matchmaking mother at bay, but hilarity ensues when love threatens to complicate everything. The last thing Hugh Standish, Earl of Fareham, ever wants is a wife. Unfortunately for him, his mother is determined to find him one, even from across the other side of the ocean. So, Hugh invents a fake fiancée to keep his mother’s matchmaking ways at bay. But when Hugh learns his interfering mother is on a ship bound for England, he realizes his complicated, convoluted but convenient ruse is about to implode. Until he collides with a beautiful woman, who might just be the miracle he needs. Minerva Merriwell has had to struggle to support herself and her two younger sisters ever since their feckless father abandoned them. Work as a woodcut engraver is few and far between, and the Merriwell sisters are nearly penniless. So, when Hugh asks Minerva to pose as his fiancée while his mother is visiting, she knows that while the scheme sounds ludicrous, the offer is too good to pass up. Once Minerva and her sisters arrive at Hugh's estate, of course, nothing goes according to his meticulous plan. As hilarity and miscommunication ensue, while everyone tries to keep their tangled stories straight, Hugh and Minerva’s fake engagement starts to turn into a real romance. But can they trust each other, when their relationship started with a lie?
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0There's nothing exactly wrong with Never Fall For Your Fiancee, but there's nothing extraordinarily right with it, either. A historical romance full of hijinks and shenanigans, it relies mainly on the fake engagement trope that I usually thoroughly enjoy. I don't mind the fairly contrived stretches it occasionally takes to get this fake engagement set up (Hugh's entire drama about his 'tainted blood,' for example, is a little too absurd), or to set up other situations for comical or romantically tense moments; that's par for the course, and nothing was so strained as to beggar belief. But Fiancee feels a little paint-by-numbers, like we're going down a checklist for this kind of novel: the characters consist of your typical plucky heroine, a dashing hero hiding his secret goodness beneath a veneer of debauched bachelordom, sparring B couple who are obviously being set up for a sequel, and an assortment of over-the-top side characters. The plot goes through the motions, doing exactly what you'd expect at every moment, and not in the satisfying way of a story following the tropes and structures you want it to, just in a slightly boring way. I was never surprised, tickled, or intrigued by any twist in the usual plot or unique turn of phrase, and had a hard time caring about the characters and their relationship. It's a fast read, breezy and light, at least, and though lacking in the witty banter you'd expect from this kind of book, it's mildly funny and romantic enough to entertain, though not memorably so.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Griffin for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
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