Tanya Wilde, $0.99, ISBN 978-0639822235
Historical Romance, 2018

Tanya Wilde’s An Invitation to Marriage opens with our heroine, Holly Middleton, regretting her impulsive action of agreeing to marry a duke. Now, on her wedding day, she decides that the Duke of St Ives has misled her, and she’s also allowed her romantic tendencies to blind her to reason and advice from the people around her. 

Oh, so now she has to marry a duke. Clearly, that’s a fate worse than death!

You may be thinking by now, what happened? Did she stumble upon him shagging the footman or maybe his favorite horse? Perhaps she discover that he is a drug addict or he turns into a mean brute when he’s drunk?

Brace yourself, people.

“Do you not understand? The duke’s a tyrant. He compiled a list of rules for me to abide by. Rules! It is unheard of! Better it be me than you.”

To be fair, the rules seem to be draconian, as it involves things like her having to follow a certain diet as determined by the duke and what not. On the other hand, one can argue that maybe this is an act of kindness, to keep someone as childish and impetuous as Holly from chewing on a shoe or something. 

Since Holly can’t dump him and ruin her siblings’ chances at socializing among Polite Society and marrying for love—that she seems to believe that true love is found only with blue-blooded toffs is something that is never addressed by the author—she will marry the duke and teach him a lesson.

Is this the moment for me to stand up and applaud this brave and stunning woman? Should I be screaming, “You go, kween! Love you, girlboss!”?

Fortunately, once again a man steps in to save such a paragon of modern feminine virtue from embarrassing herself further. Brahm Tremont, the sixth Marquis of Warton, is also conveniently hot and studly, unlike the duke Holly has agreed to marry, so that makes it perfectly justified for her to want to weasel out of her impending marriage. 

He is caught up in our heroine’s mess when she tries to flee her marriage and somehow, her equally brilliant sister Willow decides to step in and take Holly’s place at the altar instead of just leaving a polite note like Holly expected her to. Now, she wants him to help her to, er, talk to Willow. I’m not sure what she expects to tell her sister. “Think of me being free and having the time of my life when he’s rogering you, it’d make you feel better!”?

“Poppy!” Holly exclaimed. Guilt and shame churned in her belly but still she could not conceal the delighted flutter in her heart at the presence of her sister. She had never been so happy to see Poppy in her life. “What are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here? What are you doing here? Everyone is looking for you, but I wanted to find you before anyone else. What happened? Willow has been whisked away by the duke, and Papa is out of sorts. And not to say anything about the dowager—I heard she fainted right on the sidewalk!”

Holly blinked.

Had the Dragon Duchess fainted? Of course she had! It would be just like that woman to pull out every dramatic stop.

Yes, that’s Holly. Sister of the year material, people. 

Naturally, Holly never learns from her mistake, and her sister’s “sacrifice” never deters her from running headlong into a similar mess of her own making with Brahm. Fortunately, he’s the kind that indulges her because, as the author keeps telling me, the heroine is so “romantic”, you see, so I suppose Holly just can’t help it or something.

I am reading this thing with my mouth stuck in a grimace until I realize, at one point, my finger has stilled, refusing to turn to the page. I pause for a second, worried that I may have had a stroke of something, but no, it seems like my brain has experienced some kind of mini breakdown and is telling my hand to stop. 

Since I’ve no intention to be permanently discombobulated from following the antics of one of the most unbearably rude, patronizing, insufferable, impulsive, and mentally lacking heroines I’ve come across, I’d better obey my brain and give one last shudder before I close my reader. Ah, blessed peace.

The author has a bouncy and readable style when it comes to her narrative, and perhaps readers with a high threshold from moron heroine antics may like this one. Me, I bail midway and my only regret is that I should have bailed earlier, after the third chapter or something.