Review & Giveaway: Marry in Secret by Anne Gracie

Marry in Secret (Marriage of Convenience #3) by Anne Gracie

Publication Date: July 30th 2019 by Berkley

Pages: 336

Source: Publisher

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

About the book:

A rugged and ruined naval officer comes to claim his bride in an unforgettable tale of love, revenge and redemption from the national bestselling author of Marry in Scandal. 

Lady Rose Rutherford—rebel, heiress, and exasperated target of the town's hungry bachelors—has a plan to gain the freedom she so desperately desires: she will enter into a marriage of convenience with the biggest prize on the London marriage mart.

There's just one problem: the fierce-looking man who crashes her wedding to the Duke of Everingham — Thomas Beresford, the young naval officer she fell in love with and secretly married when she was still a schoolgirl. Thought to have died four years ago he's returned, a cold, hard stranger with one driving purpose—revenge.

Embittered by betrayal and hungry for vengeance, Thomas will stop at nothing to reclaim his rightful place, even if that means using Rose—and her fortune—to do it. But Rose never did follow the rules, and as she takes matters into her own unpredictable hands, Thomas finds himself in an unexpected and infuriating predicament: he's falling in love with his wife.... (less)

My Thoughts:

We meet up with Rose when she’s about to be married to a duke, a marriage of convenience, not a love-match, but as you gather from the book description that’s not going to happen.  Rose married four years ago, but thought her husband died at sea while taking her heart with him.   

I really enjoyed Marry in Secret, Rose had a heart of gold and was patient and supportive of Thomas. He went through a harrowing experience, something I didn’t really know happened to seamen at the time, but the author’s note explains Thomas’s experience was based on a real-life account and it’s heartbreaking. It definitely took more time to unravel all of Thomas’ situation and feelings, but I never doubted that he loved Rose, and she didn’t either.  There’s a mystery about Thomas’ family and some danger that comes from it, adding a bit more excitement that kept me turning those pages to get to the bottom of things.

Following Rose and Thomas as they sort out the past, get to know each other and savor their reunion was touching, emotional and a pleasure!  This is my first Anne Gracie novel, but it won’t be my last! I think Rose’s cousin Georgiana is up next and I can’t wait!

4 Suns

Excerpt:

            Rose paused at the church door. Lily and George fluttered around her, straightening the circlet of flowers in her hair, arranging the lace train of her dress. Rose stood, lively as a statue and about as warm. “Now, don’t be nervous,” Aunt Dottie had said a few moments before. “It will all work out perfectly, trust me, my love. I have one of my feelings.”

But Rose wasn’t the slightest bit nervous. It all felt strangely distant, as if it were happening to some other girl. She moistened her lips and waited.

George poked her head around the door, glanced in and pulled a face. “He’s there.”

“Well, of course he’s there,” Lily said crossly. Poor Lily. She’d been in a brittle mood all morning, trying to put a good face on a wedding she still had grave doubts about. Lily wasn’t very good at hiding her feelings.

What if the duke hadn’t come? He was notoriously unreliable about keeping engagements. What if he’d jilted her at the altar? Rose considered it briefly and decided that it would be embarrassing . . . and possibly something of a relief.

Nonsense. She needed to do this, needed to draw a line in the sand between her old life and her new. Cut the bonds of the old, and move on.

“Ready?” her brother Cal asked. She nodded and took his arm.

Now. She took a deep breath and stepped inside the church and stood blinking as her eyes adjusted to the dim light of the interior. A hush fell, followed by a susurration of whispers and rustling silk as the congregation turned as one to look at the bride.

The church smelled of flowers, spring flowers, and beeswax, brass polish and perfumes, a hundred clashing perfumes.

At the end of the aisle, in the dappled light of a stained-glass window, stood her future husband, the Duke of Everingham, looking bored. He’d removed his gray kid gloves and was slapping them rhythmically in his palm. Bored and impatient.

At least he’d turned up.

The organ played a chord that swelled to a crescendo, then died, and then the music started and she was walking, walking like an automaton, toward the altar, toward her fate.

She felt everyone’s eyes on her. She’d hardly slept. Did it show? Did she care if it did?

The duke stepped forward. Cal waited, his arm steady beneath her hand, ready to hand her over—like a parcel, like a possession, George had muttered once at another wedding they’d attended.

Rose glanced up and met the duke’s gaze. Dark eyes, gray-green, and cold as the winter sea. Perfectly good eyes, but the wrong color. The wrong eyes.

She regarded them bleakly. Time healed all wounds. Or so they said.

The bishop, resplendent in his robes of gold and purple, cleared his throat and they turned to face him. Rose hoped he wasn’t the kind of bishop who would give some long dreary sermon. She wanted this wedding over. Over and done with. No going back.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here . . .”

The familiar words washed over her. She was calm, quite calm. Coldly, perfectly calm. Not like last time.

The bishop continued, speaking in those melodic rises and falls peculiar to ministers. Did they teach them that singsong cadence at minister school? “. . . not by any to be enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, to satisfy men’s carnal lusts and appetites . . .”

She shivered. Lord, but this church was cold.

“Therefore if any man can show any just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak or else hereafter forever hold his peace.”

Her fingers were freezing. She should have worn kid gloves instead of these lace ones.

The bishop paused for a perfunctory breath, then continued, “I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that—”

“Stop the wedding!”

Berkley generously provided a Paperback Copy of Mary in Secret to giveaway to one reader.  The giveaway is open to US Residents only. Fill out the rafflecopter for a chance to win. 

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