How to Marry a Marquess (Wedded by Scandal #3) by Stacy Reid

  

  How to Marry a Marquess by Stacy Reid

Blurb:

Lady Evie Chesterfield is a darling of the ton who refuses to become engaged. She’s been desperately in love with her brother’s friend, Richard Maitland, Marquess of Westfall, since forever. But the dark, dangerous marquess only sees her as a friend and refuses to marry any woman. When circumstances change and Evie has no choice but to take a husband, she decides to convince London’s most notorious gentleman to marry her by seducing the scoundrel.

Richard Maitland decided long ago that he wanted nothing to do with love. So when the gorgeous, off-limits Evie asks him for lessons in seduction, Richard knows he’s playing with fire. Despite Richard’s determination to protect her from his dastardly reputation, he is tested at every turn by his need for the infuriating, but enticing, Lady Evie. Before too long he is faced with making an impossible choice…


This book took me some time to read and even though on the whole, it was well written, I couldn't really get into it as I didn't like the hero, not at all.

He is judgemental, arrogant and convinced that he is the only one who cares for those less fortunate than him and the only one who is brave enough to weather the ton's censure in order to help others. Even though he has been good friends with our heroine for years, he can't consider her as a possible wife because, well, he knows that she couldn't live like that, she wouldn't care as much as he does and she wouldn't be able to live defying the rules of society. Soooo, no matter what happens, she can't be considered for the position as his marchioness and when things get a bit out of hand and feelings threaten to take over, well, there is nothing better than lining up another potential wife and flaunt her in front of the one you care for, right? NO. Definitely NOT.

Evie has been in love with Richard forever and she would gladly ignore all the stupid rules of society if Richard would finally see her as a woman and would care to have her at his side. Unfortunately, he is far too convinced of his own importance and his own superiority to see that. And of course, he doesn't want a wife for whom he has feelings because that would leave him vulnerable.
Why exactly that should give him the right to trample all over someone else's feelings and why he doesn't even realize that people can't change or care for things they don't know anything about and that you have to talk about those things in order to make them see and change things, well, he might feel less superior if he would see that they care indeed as much as he does, right?

The book is well written and it has a nice story and some nice characters but Evie remained somewhat flat whereas Richard was a bit more complex but very unlikable. I've read other books by the author that I really enjoyed reading but this one - not so much. When I first finished the book I thought that it was nice and fine, even though a bit predictable but the more I thought about it the more I realized why it took me several weeks to finish it. As it is still well written, I decided to give it three very weak stars.

★★★