Book Review: The Reluctant Wife by Bronwen Evans

Love the cover,
but every other page it says that
Abby's hair is blond. 

At First Sight: Three years after leaving her husband, Abby returns to this Italian villa to ask him for a favor. Conte Dante Lombardi isn't sure how he feels about his errant wife's return. In his mind, she left because of a petty fight and should have crawled back long before.

But, he never really forgotten Abby - he didn't want to forget her - and he has reasons why he would much rather remain married than go through with a divorce. So he strikes a deal with Abby; he'll give her the money she needs for her Grandmother's surgery, and in exchange she'll stay with him in Italy and they'll resume where they left off 3 years ago.

Abby isn't happy with this arrangement, but she'll do just about anything for her Gran - who is her only surviving relative - so she agrees, plus, deep down, she never really stopped loving Dante, even if his obsession with having a child as soon as possible is very annoying.

Second Glance: Okay, so Abby married Dante when she was only 19 years old - he was in late twenties- early thirties - afte a whirlwind courtship and a society wedding. But their marriage didn't last long as Abby was really unprepared to be a wife at that age, and she certainly wasn't ready to be a mother.

Dante is a bit obsessed with his own mortality  -both his grandfather and father died fairly young - and he knows he needs to have a son soon, as in his mind time is running out, both because he wants to be a father and because it would secure his family's future.

This was a fairly standard story, it had a bit of old-school category romance which was nice in it's own way. There weren't any big surprises or amazing character development but it was OK. The beginning was pretty entertaining and before I knew it I was almost done.

Bottom Line: Is The Reluctant Wife something to write home about? not necessarily, but it was fun while it lasted and I think that the people who go after category romance will find it pretty good. For me, I would have liked the characters to be a little more developed and for the issues in Dante and Abby's relationship to actually been adressed, but it was ok.