The Trouble with Harry
Widower Harry, Marquis Rosse, seeks a marriage of convenience to provide a mother for his five uncontrollable children. He chooses “Plum,” Frederica Pelham, an older woman with a bigamous marriage and the authorship of a scandalous sex manual in her own past to hide.
The synthetic yellow rubber ducky amid gentlemen’s evening trappings on the cover (for which the author at least felt the need of adding an apologetic note) sets the tone. If such a thing has charm for you, this may be the romance novel for you. I am used, however, to witty repartee being half the charm of the Regency novel. This attempt lumbering with American modernisms leaves much to be desired in language and, following a disturbing new trend, depends on sex pure and simple for attraction between the couple. Sex also gets in the way of plot. Scandal, kidnapping and even murder are ill prepared, brushed quickly aside and so disjointed that it annoys like the peppering of salt shot. The conflict between the couple never gained the intensity needed to pull the reader through.
