Hidden Affections

I confess I bought this book on a bargain because I loved the cover. The cover does not represent the book in more ways than one.

Spoilers may follow

The historical nonsense drove me up a wall. From the beginning where the reason the two of them are cuffed together (Ooooh, with unique Darby cuffs!...uh, at least 90% of the cuffs then were Darby cuffs) is artificially obscured in order to give a more “action” entry, then revealed bit by bit, to the end, things are strangely highlighted and the plot makes zero sense.

This book was such a bad example of the marriage-of-convenience trope. While the heroine is rather likable, the hero is not and continues to growl and be a control freak. It also includes three chapters of a bedroom scene after their marriage, which isn't a sex scene but which includes undress, a bath, and a man being naked and a woman thinking too much about it FOR THREE CHAPTERS. I almost quit reading then but kept thinking “how much longer can this go on?”

Then they say they want an annulment. 1) All they had to do was to state in public that the marriage was forced and that they did not consent to it. 2) If you want the marriage annulled, don't move in together and pretend to the servants that you have a normal marriage. 3) You couldn't have an Indiana divorce if you didn't live in Indiana. 4) Despite Indiana having looser divorce laws, no-fault divorce was NOT a thing in the 1830s.

I'll spare you the rest. It just gets more senselessly melodramatic.