Carrie Lomax, $2.99
Historical Romance, 2021

The spiritual sequel to Twelve Nights of Scandal, Carrie Lomax’s Twelve Nights of Ruin features another heroine that needs to get married or be ruined in a most dramatic manner.

Holly Merryweather’s reputation can only be given a new coat of respectability when she marries the former soldier Reynard Sharp. I’m not sure why she’s ruined when her intended was the one that was revealed to prefer the affections of other fellows instead of hers, but I suppose people may assume that she drove him to be that way, who knows.

Anyway, despite her predicament, our heroine naturally goes all eeuw and eeeee like an unlikable termagant at the poor fellow. Fortunately, Reynard fancies himself a tactician, so he will use his supreme secret skills of military stratagem or something to get her to be his fawning groupie for life.

Once he had established that he was the master, she’d settle into her role of wife and, eventually, mother. All Rey needed to do was ferret out her deepest fears and desires, then exploit them ruthlessly to get what he wanted most of all—her fidelity, both in bed and out of it.

Wait, what does fidelity in bed means? Is he worried that she would shag someone else in the bedroom as well as out of it?

Anyway, there is a possible good story in here somewhere. Holly is my favorite kind of heroine, actually. She starts out spoiled and a bit on the mean girl side, but she is not stupid and she definitely doesn’t let anyone walk all over her. She is very aware, most of the time, of the situations she is in, and she certainly knows when to tell it as it is when the hero is being a total turd to her.

The fact that she has no blind spot when it comes to her father is a tall glass of water, as I’ve come across way too many stories of this kind with the mother being demonized while the father is allowed to do anything without being called on his crap. Unfortunately, the author has Holly resenting them for forcing her to marry to save her own reputation… guess I can’t have it all and a romance heroine needs to have at least a dab of the loose screw syndrome or else she won’t be “romantic”.

The hero, though, is such a weirdo. There is no need to think like he does, as the heroine is already a putty two-thirds on her way to putting out after the first kiss, so I can only imagine that he’s either a whackjob or he’s doing what he does because of plot. Unsurprisingly, he is prone to jumping to wrong conclusions and lashing out melodramatically as a result. 

That’s where my issue with this story comes in. This one needs far more pages to let the hero work out his issues in a more convincing manner, or at least convince me that he’s not three screws loose in the head. As it is, this story jumps from conflict to a hasty happily ever after, and I don’t—can’t—buy this happy ending.

I really like the author’s style. Her narrative flows like warm honey over freshly baked waffles, and she has a gentle but amusing way with conversations. I don’t even mind the gratuitous appearances of secondary characters here because the author makes these scenes feel like an organic part of the story instead of padding material. 

It’s just too bad that this story needs more words to let the conflict bake itself out more and make the happily ever after more believable.