Review - Viscount in Love by Eloisa James

 

2 out of 5 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review 

Torie needed protection from her grasping, unkind father. He needed a mother for the twins. 

Viscount in Love kicks off a new series called Accidental Brides. The first twenty percent of this, Torie's sister Lenora is engaged to Dom, the Viscount. It's by no means a love match, Lenora never wanted to marry a Duke (I guess it was otherwise a given??) because she hates attention, so when she was a young girl she set her sights for a Viscount. Dom is known for his anger and yelling in the House of Lords (no really, you'll hear about it over and over) but otherwise tries to keep himself emotionless, this is because of daddy issues and how his father saw emotion, along with his dimples, as effeminate, so he tries not to smile. He likes Lenora because of her “ladylike” qualities and knows she won't challenge him too much but she keeps putting off setting a date for the wedding. It's when Dom's sister and her husband dies and he inherits guardianship of their twin children that Lenora decides that's a bridge too far and ends up, sort of, eloping with a baron. Leaving Dom at square one and wanting a nanny-wife for the twins. How fortuitous that Lenora's sister Torie has spent this twenty percent of story time befriending the twins and catching Dom's eye. 

Torie had a dizzyingly joyful feeling that she had found some family members who liked her, even given her deficiencies. 

This was almost four hundred pages long and since I wasn't feeling the, obvious given prompt of “rom-com” and “spice”, vibe, this dragged a lot for me. I didn't feel any relationship development between Dom and Torie, maybe the last 15% had more what I was looking for, They both like the eye-candy value of the other, Dom feels protective of Torie because of how rude and hurtful her dad and sister comments are to her in regard to how she can't read (dyslexia) and Torie thinks she catches glimpses of the caring person Dom is under the thunderous expressions. Since I didn't feel or thought I saw any relationship/emotional development between the two, Dom's protectiveness felt empty posturing and when the open door scenes started in the later second half, his “on your knees” spice left me feeling nothing. 

He leaned over the desk. “What's the going price for a bride?” 

The twins played a decent size role in this and I guess are there to supply the rom-com, they're just so wildly, freshly precocious with their eleven year old selves. Around sixty percent is when Torie and Dom finally marry, I wish we could have started the marriage of convenience more towards the beginning middle for some of that great proximity tension, but they don't have a problem starting their physical relationship pretty quick. From there it's just Tori realizing, oops, I do love this person and Dom coming to grips with the fact that, yes, he can feel love too. The third act break-up does have some character work with Dom realizing that his learned forms of communication from his father is not healthy and having to go chase down Torie and apologize, promising to do better. There was some of that emotion I was looking for in ending scenes and a reveal to Dom as he tried to do a big gesture for Torie that hit really well. 

He was a grumpy man, her husband, but all the same, she saw a gleam of pure delight in his eyes when she kissed him. 

The vibe in this never really jived with me, Dom's protectiveness and “mine” attitude felt empty and childish without the emotional/relationship development I like, the children's madcap antics felt forced, and Torie felt a little distance to me in her own story. Secondary characters that should have had some importance, Torie's dad, sister, and the Duke of Queensberry, fell extremely flat. However, if you want a historical romance that seems to be going for rom-com and spice (with a late addition rabbit that poops everywhere), though, you'd probably enjoy it more that I did.