Marriage of Convenience!
A Lyon in her Bed (The Lyon's Den Connected World)
by Amanda Mariel
Lady Emiline Hawthorne has a problem. She's on the verge of being forced into an unwanted marriage. Leonard Quinton, 6th Earl of Morton needs an heir, that means a bride. A marriage of convenience, organized as quickly as possible will work for him. Ditto for Emiline. Hence a visit by both protagonists to The Lyon’s Den and matchmaker Mrs. Bessie Dove-Lyon.
I liked the premise of a matchmaker. Not that the matchmaker did much matching on this occasion except become the intersection of chance for our two main characters.
Unfortunately it turned out this promising novella had a rather thin spinning of its tale despite its promising storyline. It galloped its way through the events with more than quite a few pages devoted to marital bed antics.
There was a nice little play around the wounded feline kitten and wounded LEOnard. I kept thinking about the story of Androcles and the Lion, and that Leonard is indeed a wounded lion. Whilst away at war the love of his life married elsewhere. He's never recovered. Will Emiline be able to remove the thorn from Leonard's heart? Or is she like the mouse in Aesop's fable that disturbs the lion's sleep and then is in danger of being destroyed? Either way, this is the crux of the matter, the heart of the story for me. The fact that I honed in on this paragraph and amused myself with these analogies earned the story a couple of points, bringing the story from a 2 star to a 3 star read.
A Dragonblade ARC via NetGalley
***
by Amanda Mariel
Lady Emiline Hawthorne has a problem. She's on the verge of being forced into an unwanted marriage. Leonard Quinton, 6th Earl of Morton needs an heir, that means a bride. A marriage of convenience, organized as quickly as possible will work for him. Ditto for Emiline. Hence a visit by both protagonists to The Lyon’s Den and matchmaker Mrs. Bessie Dove-Lyon.
I liked the premise of a matchmaker. Not that the matchmaker did much matching on this occasion except become the intersection of chance for our two main characters.
Unfortunately it turned out this promising novella had a rather thin spinning of its tale despite its promising storyline. It galloped its way through the events with more than quite a few pages devoted to marital bed antics.
There was a nice little play around the wounded feline kitten and wounded LEOnard. I kept thinking about the story of Androcles and the Lion, and that Leonard is indeed a wounded lion. Whilst away at war the love of his life married elsewhere. He's never recovered. Will Emiline be able to remove the thorn from Leonard's heart? Or is she like the mouse in Aesop's fable that disturbs the lion's sleep and then is in danger of being destroyed? Either way, this is the crux of the matter, the heart of the story for me. The fact that I honed in on this paragraph and amused myself with these analogies earned the story a couple of points, bringing the story from a 2 star to a 3 star read.
A Dragonblade ARC via NetGalley
***
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