Name: First Comes Marriage
ISBN: 9780440244226

Mary Balogh

Young widow Vanessa Huxtable Dew, in an effort to save her sister from a loveless marriage to Elliott Wallace, Viscount Lyngate, offers herself instead, while Elliott pursues a mysterious mission of his own.

First Comes Marriage

Lisa Miller

The first book in a regency romance series it had two jobs: Introduce the main cast/stoy arc for the series as a whole and also concentrate on a central couple for this book alone. The first was done very well, a very likeable family of siblings lifted from genteel poverty to landed wealth and title. There was an extensive background story and a lot of pages was spent on it yet it wasn't tedious. The main couple/romance is what let this book down, the individual characters were great but their story together and the main conflict fizzled. I also thought the Hero's character 'flaw' of being brusque came across instead as not being able to think critically and was not believable and his transformation was preachy. But it was a solid start to the series and I will read the next book.