Received from pbs.
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From Publishers Weekly
The latest installment in Guhrke's Girl-Bachelor Chronicles (after And Then He Kissed Her) is a capable Victorian that finds an unlikely heiress and a penniless duke headed for the altar. Prudence Bosworth is working as a lowly seamstress when she discovers that her absentee father has died a wealthy man in America and named her his sole beneficiary. But in order to inherit his vast fortune, the will stipulates that she must marry within the year. Prudence is pleasantly surprised when Rhys De Winter, the duke of St. Cyres, showers her with attention and affection. Naturally, he's hoping to restore his family's coffers, but is caught off guard when a very real attraction builds between them. Though Prudence's reverent, unsuspecting attitude toward St. Cyres might strike readers as unrealistically naïve, they should enjoy the transformation it inspires in selfish St. Cyres, and the distinctive conclusion is satisfying. (Jan.)
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I had trouble getting into this book from the beginning. We knew that Rhys was only Prudence for her money, so this made Prudence seem extremely naive and not too bright. She's supposed to be a girl-bachelor who has been on her own for 12 years. How can she be that dense? And since she did not discover his true motives until almost the end of the book, this gave the whole courtship during which Prudence and Rhys was supposed to have gotten to know each other a ring of falseness. For Prudence, she was falling in love with who she thought he was, not who he really is; and for Rhys, while I can well believe that Prudence gave him the much needed comfort for him to walk out from the shadows of his past, I just can't understand what he saw in Prudence for him to fall for her. Other than being extremely naive, she did not really exhibit any personality for me to believe that someone like Rhys would fall for her that hard.

I think that this book would have been a lot better if Prudence had discovered Rhys's subterfuge a lot sooner and if the author had devoted more of the book to Rhys's attempts to win her back. As the way it is written, the romance seems very false. I also did not like the ending, when the author decided to gave the characters a convenient way out with an extremely cliched and formulaic "twist".

1/27/09 Reserved for romance vbb.

2/17/09 Reserved for CharmedKim.