Sophie Barnes, $0.99, ISBN 978-1386639091
Historical Romance, 2017
My spider sense begins to tingle when I start reading the first few pages of Sophie Barnes’s The Earl Who Loved Her.
Eve Potter and her sisters are living in genteel poverty. The eldest sister has left to become a governess so that she can help keep a roof over the other sisters’ heads. Of course, they mention that they have a guardian, whom they refuse to communicate with much less ask money from, because that would be… inconveniencing the uncle.
“No! Absolutely not, Eve. We have managed to get by without relying on any man this past year since Papa died, and we shall continue to do so. Because to take money from a stranger…”
“He is our uncle.”
“And yet we have never made his acquaintance.” Josephine shook her head. “It wouldn’t be right to ask for his help, and I would hate to feel beholden.”
I tell you: romance heroines are the best kind of unwanted relatives. You just leave them alone in a dank and dark corner, and they will have the full courtesy to expire soon enough in a most polite and discreet manner.
Sadly, these women are clearly earmarked not for well-deserved deaths but to be romance heroines, and this is Eve’s story. She does mention asking their guardian for assistance, so she’s clearly the smartest one of the entire lot. Therefore, this story can’t be that bad, right?
In this one, Eve visits Amberly Hall, the home of her childhood friend, upon said friend’s invitation. The plan is to score a wealthy husband, because a penniless working-class lady is all the rage these days among the men of Polite Society.
Instead, she ends up at the home of Bryce Harlowe, the Earl of Moneybags That the Heroine Would Surely Need, frozen and miserable because her coach somehow went the wrong way, and he is too kind to leave her out there to die.
She then spends the rest of the story enjoying the hero’s luxurious hospitality, but convinced that I may think of her as a mercenary ho if she dares to admit that she’s having fun, Eve continues to apologize and whine about how she’s inconveniencing him, gets uncharacteristically sassy and even physically abusive with him when he tries to get her to just relax and chill while the snowstorm rages outside, and almost gets herself killed when she tries to “escape” his clearly awful and cruel efforts to keep her warm and comfortable.
Really? Have we run out of plots that won’t make the heroine come off as a total imbecile?
In the end, the hero declares his love, although god knows why he would feel that way for this creature, and Eve finally relents and accepts the love and wealth that she clearly deserves without having to fear that she comes off as a money-grubbing ho.
The story is readable, and I do like how good Bruce is at making a woman so cozy and pampered in such an effortless manner. He’s certainly a dreamboat, but the heroine… she’s yikes to the highest power of yikes.
Still, good for her for somehow finding a wealthy and hot bloke without earning her happy ending, and I can only hope he won’t regret his decision to marry this idiot. Then, I’m on my way, this story half-forgotten already.
