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Title: An Inconvenient Wife (Signet Regency Romance, 9484)
ISBN: 0451194845
Author:
Patricia Oliver
Publicate Date: 1998-05-01
Publish: 1998-05-01
List Price: $4.99
Average Customer Rating: 3.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $4.49
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $2.77
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1: not up to par
Patricia Oliver can write a charming Regency. This is not one of them. It feels like she took every clich?? of the genre and piled them, one on top of the other, to fill up the pages. She does a poor job too of adhering to proper Regency behavior. The heroine Pamela *might* have known that her father fought a duel with hero Robert's father before she was born, though that is unlikely, but she certainly would not have known that the reason for it was that her father appeared to be having an affair with Robert's mother! She also would not have openly attended a public boxing match with the approval of her father; he's typically close-minded and she is a quiet, introverted character who wouldn't care to watch, much less flout convention in that manner.
Pamela also exhibits a lack of consistent behavior and attitudes that I find most maddening. Her thoughts and feelings toward her father, her cousin, her cousin's would-be fiance, the hero ... all vary according to the needs of the story at the moment, rather than writing the story around the consistency of the character. And I am seriously confused as to why the childhood friend/fortune hunter she runs away with, to avoid marrying the hero, would deliberately ask for slow horses and try to seduce her at an inn, when he should be getting her to London and a marriage license as fast as he can trot - she asked HIM to marry HER for pete's sake, she doesn't need convincing! A very disappointing effort from an author I generally enjoy; I honestly could not finish reading this one.
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2: An innocent lady pays the price for a rendezvous turned into mayhem
Another one of those caught-in-the-act forced marriage books. Only here Lady Pamela is an innocent victim of circumstance and Monroyal (Marquess), a great debaucher is not. She is simply at the wrong place (& woman for that matter) at the wrong time. She is a spinster blue-stocking and he a cynical rake....blah..blah..blah (insert cliches here). So even thought they HATE each other, they are forced to wed. And the lovely hero, of course, dumps her at some minor estate of his, but fate soon brings them together.
This book would have been down right boring and extremely repetitive (this plot is beyond overdone) except for Oliver's writing -simply superb in this genre. I truly feel she captures the essence of the regency period (at least to my limited knowledge) and infuses it with a fresh perspective. This is not your average reformed rake book, the hero does not become a lovesick swan at the end. Rather he is more like a *real* rake would be. And Pamela is a true bluestocking too. Luckily Oliver didn't turn her into some diamond of the first water or a newly emerged nympho. Both characters bent just enough to make their falling in love to be believable.
The lack of five stars is merely because I wanted a bit more at the ending. And the book could have used a *full* love scene -not a smattering. Other than that its darn good reading!
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3: One of the Seven Corinthian series by late Patricia Oliver..
This book was one of the earlier books that I read in this series (not well known to most Regency romance readers) by the late Patricia Oliver who died recently. I started out with Roses for Harriet (an earlier book chronologically and in publication oder) at least three years back when I had just begun to read Signet regency romances. Recently I re-read this book along with Roses for Harriet, and The Colonel's Lady.This review places the book in context of the series, rather than providing an opinion of the book per se. The Seven Corinthians are a group of wealthy gentlemen who are interested in fast horses, in gambling and other male aristocratic amusements, in pretty and fast women, and also in athletic pursuits. I am not sure that I have an exact list of who is one of the Seven, but here is a tentative list - firstly, Robert [Heathercott], Marquess of Gresham [who plays a significant part in The Colonel's Lady, and whose own romance is in Lord Gresham's Lady]; secondly, [Robert Stilton] the Marquess of Monroyal [who plays a significant part in An Immodest Proposal and a minor part in some other books, and whose own marriage is set in this book - An Inconvenient Wife - set in 1817]; thirdly, the Honourable Willoughby "Willy" Hampton [who never managed to get his love before the author died, alas!]; fourthly, his brother Major Jack Hampton [whose story is told, I believe, in The Runaway Duchess, which I have not read]; fifthly, [Giles Montague] the Earl of Kimbalton [whose story is told in Roses for Harriet, and who appears at the beginning of this book]; sixthly, [Phineas Ravensville] the Earl of Mansfield or "Raven" [whose story appears in Miss Drayton's Downfall, and who also appears at the beginning of this book]; and seventh and last, the Duke of Wolverton whose story is told in another book An Unsuitable Match. Other books - The Colonel's Lady tells the story of Lord Gresham's only sister Lady Regina Heathercott, and An Immodest Proposal the story of Lord Monroyal's step-cousin the Dowager Viscountess Lonsdale (called here Lady Cynthia Lonsdale). I have written down the names of the heroes as they should appear, since in reality, peers were not known by their first name, family name and title (although courtesy peers were styled by their first name and courtesy title hence Robert, Marquess of Gresham). One of the things I noticed in beginning a re-read of Patricia Oliver's Seven Corinthian series (and the two related books) is that her books are far more appealing when the reader knows relatively little about the social conventions (let alone proper styles of the peers and courtesy peers). On a re-read, I found myself questioning elements of her plots, and judging both her heroes and heroines far more harshly. I will comment on the book in a separate review. As far as I can tell, AN INCONVENIENT WIFE is perhaps the last in the Seven Corinthian series (the last that is, that ends with one of them married). For lovers of Patricia Oliver, this is one reason alone to keep this book. I confess to a weakness for the series myself, even though I find the plots rather unlikely today.
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4: Caught in a trap of his own making!
When Robert Monroyal, depressed at seeing so many of his close friends - all once rakehells like himself - now married, bets ten thousand pounds that he will never marry, he never imagines that scarcely a couple of weeks later he will find himself forced to marry a woman he barely knows, the daughter of a man he despises, who hates his guts and whom he believes to have trapped him. And yet from these inauspicious beginnings....Robert Monroyal first appeared as the cynical, sneering friend of Guy Hawkhurst in An Unsuitable Match, and very much merited a book of his own. And Oliver did him proud! He's not, of course, quite the arrogant, cruel man he appears to be, but he is seriously troubled and in need of a good woman. However, he certainly doesn't intend that Pamela should have any role in his life. Instead, he sends her away to his country estates, planning never to visit her. However, he reckons without his siblings, his step-mother and even Pamela herself. A great read!
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5: Well worth reading - a further instalment in Oliver's series
As a stand-alone book, this is an enjoyable tale of a cynical, embittered rake who has vowed never to marry, and the marriage he finds himself forced to make as a result of being caught _in flagrante_ with the wrong lady.As another episode in Oliver's Seven Corinthians linked books, it is even more worth the purchase. The Marquess of Monroyal first appeared as an intriguing and in some ways likeable figure in 'An Unsuitable Match,' and it is good to see him getting his own story. Monroyal, Hawkhurst and the other two men in 'An Unsuitable Match' were new characters in the series; none of these had appeared in Oliver's previous books, though earlier characters reappear in both 'Unsuitable Match' and 'Inconvenient Wife.' What puzzles me about Monroyal, however, is that at the start of this book there is reference to his feelings for the Countess of Mansfield, and his attempt to run off to Paris with her. However, as readers of 'Miss Drayton's Downfall' and 'Lord Gresham's Lady' will be aware, the person who offered to run off with Cassandra Mansfield was the Marquess of Gresham. It's unclear, therefore, whether Oliver got her characters mixed up and hadn't realised that she had given Monroyal the same 'back-story', or whether she liked Lord Gresham so much that she decided to duplicate him in Monroyal. Still, regardless of that, this is a book you'll want to read again, particularly in conjunction with the others in the series. I can't tell whether Oliver has continued this series since; this appears to be the most recent I can find, but there are other characters who have not yet had their own stories, most noticeably 'Sweet Willy' Hampton. Anyone know?
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