![\"\"](\"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/wifeerrant.jpg\")
This is such a hot mess of a book. Joan Smith is always a bit hit or miss, but this one was a spectacular miss, without a single likeable character or plot event.<\/p>\nThis is such a hot mess of a book. Joan Smith is always a bit hit or miss, but this one was a spectacular miss, without a single likeable character or plot event.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the premise: Tess Merchant\u2019s parents are living apart and threatening to divorce, largely because he\u2019s been fooling around with a mistress very publicly, and she retaliates by finding an admirer or her own. Tess can see that this is not going to end well. However, the admirer, Lord James, has a cousin who\u2019s almost as much of a ne\u2019er-do-well as he is, but Tess wonders whether Lord Revel might have some influence over his cousin and get him to back off. Then at least there\u2019d be a chance of persuading her father back home, which the whole family wants.<\/p>\n
Now, this is a fairly daft plot to begin with. Divorce isn\u2019t something anyone undertakes lightly, for one thing, since it involves an act of Parliament, and no wife could get one in the Regency. It was strictly for men to get rid of adulterous wives, not for wives to get rid of adulterous husbands. There was no recourse for them except to put up and shut up. Still, Lord Revel agrees to be party to the scheme to reconcile the parents, mainly by encouraging Tess to step outside the bounds of propriety and stay out till all hours with him. Right, so the plan is to restore the family\u2019s reputation by damaging the daughter\u2019s\u2026 I see. And, in the best traditions of Joan Smith novels, the two manage to fall in love while constantly sniping at each other and pretending they hate each other.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a lot more silliness, but I really can\u2019t be bothered to go into all that. I finished the book without throwing it against the wall, that\u2019s as much as I can say about it. And it\u2019s clean. And it\u2019s Joan Smith, so if you like that kind of undiluted sniping for almost the entire book, there you go. Two stars (and I think I\u2019m being generous here).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is such a hot mess of a book. Joan Smith is always a bit hit or miss, but this one was a spectacular miss, without a single likeable character or plot event. Here\u2019s the premise: Tess Merchant\u2019s parents are living apart and threatening to divorce, largely because he\u2019s been fooling around with a mistress […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-5673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","tag-smith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5673"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5677,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5673\/revisions\/5677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}