Title: Her Ladyship's Companion

Author: Evangeline Collins

Publisher: Berkley 2009

Genre: Historical Romance

Pages: 330

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Romance; Mount TBR; 52 Books -- W41; Fall into Reading

How I Got It: I own it

Condemned to a loveless marriage, Lady Isabella Stirling indulges herself by taking a lover. But even though she knows Gideon Rosedale's passion was for sale, she's fallen in love with him.

All through the 300 pages of this novel, I kept waiting for something more. It wasn't bad, but it just deliver me any more than a stereotypical bodice-ripper style romance. The characters started out interesting, but over the course of the plot, I just didn't like them any more. Isabella's desperation for Gideon started to grate on my nerves. She started out so strong and ended up the damsel in distress. I just grew tired of her. Making Lord Stirling and Lady Isabella's brothers such caricature villains made the novel even more predictable. The sex scenes were generously sprinkled every few pages and overall were decent. But the ending... I think the ending was why I really knocked this one down to 3 stars. The ending and resolution was completely deus ex machina and I just couldn't take it all. Coincidences and perfect timing are the only ways to reconcile the ending. To me it just felt faked and forced. I couldn't get completely behind it.