A Marriage of Convenience

In this flimsy Regency romance, Grace Ellis, a doctor’s daughter turned lady’s companion, faces tough choices about her future after the death of her employer, Lady Florence. Grace could move to Australia with Jessie the housemaid and her unpleasant husband, Brian, or marry Lady Florence’s 60-year-old nephew, Brigadier Maximilian Crouch, to collect an inheritance. Meanwhile, the lady’s disgraced secretary, Pawley, is hatching some sort of scheme with Brian to steal Lady Florence’s money. Dominic LéSayres, who comes to Oakford House to settle Lady Florence’s financial affairs, invents a job for Grace to whisk her out of Hampshire to safety. Dominic is smitten and Grace is happy to be rescued, but there is very little chemistry to make this a believable love story. The romance has too many subplots left unresolved: it’s never clear why Crouch is cast as the villain (other than that he “preferred the company of men,” a proclivity that Grace sneers at as “foppish nonsense”), or what exactly is going on with Pawley. Despite the passing references to Australia’s gold rush and the ongoing war against the French, the connection to the Regency period is weak. All the expected story elements are there—drama, conflict, and surprises—but the clunky prose keeps them from coming together. Agent: Kate Nash, Kate Nash Literary. (June)