Reviews

Un mariage salvateur by Jo Beverley

rellimreads's review against another edition

DNF.

I’m not rating or writing a review. Just for my records so I don’t stumble across it again thinking it looks interesting.

CW: Rape, affairs, probably more but DNF.

Good (but spoiler) reviews that eloquently say why here:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/436522973

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1678028621

birdloveranne's review against another edition

1.0

Although I did finish it, I did not enjoy this story about Barbie and the Psycho Twins.

lifeand100books's review against another edition

3.0

I'm not sure how I feel about this book. Everything about Eleanor's rape, Kit's role in it, and Nicholas's affair/ feelings have left me just.....unsure about this story.

You never get a sense of who Nicholas really is. From the minute we meet him he's playing a role. I never felt like he stopped playing a role. When did he fall in love with Eleanor? Was it because he was jealous at the way his friends could be with her?

Why was Kit not more forthcoming to Eleanor about his role in her rape? Yes he was drugged, but why try to foist it off that his brother had done it. He never apologized for his actions and that honestly pissed me off. He takes no responsibility for anything.

And Eleanor....poor Eleanor. What a horrible series of circumstances she is dealt. I really wanted her to make Nicholas grovel more. He treated her so poorly. She deserved better.

ameretet's review against another edition

1.0

I guess this is one of those beloved old school type romances but I was so horrified throughout. The opening scene is terrible and it just continues through the book. So one star. TBH I can't believe I finished it.

tessisreading2's review against another edition

2.0

I've been enjoying re-reading Jo Beverley, completely out-of-order, but had some difficulty with this one from page one. The general plot thread of the novel is similar to The Viscount Needs a Wife - Eleanor adjusting to married life, Nicholas having a political life outside her. It's a little surprising that some scenes which would be big scenes in most romance novels happen off-screen here (e.g. when Nicholas meets Eleanor's dastardly brother). However, in this case, the political plot is that

Spoiler

Nicholas must seduce a Frenchwoman of dubious morals despite his recent marriage, which is just kind of gross. He literally spends most of the novel hiding his feelings for Eleanor because he's sleeping with the mistress throughout and it strikes him as gross to go from the mistress' bed to his wife's, which, yes, it is.

In the meantime, the "big misunderstanding" that brings the hero and heroine together is that the hero's brother - who is actually mostly gay - rapes the heroine while she is unconscious, then tells the heroine that the rapist is actually his twin (the hero), who will marry her. The heroine, having few other options, agrees to marry her rapist, only to discover after the marriage (and the wedding night) that she was actually assaulted by her brother-in-law. I find this whole situation viscerally horrifying, and Beverley's treatment of it even more so; the entire rape is treated generally as a seduction might have been (strait-laced hero marries brother's cast-off seductee, the plot of many a Harlequin). The hero repeatedly tells the heroine that she should forgive and forget (no, he literally says that, and when she objects he says she must be pregnant because pregnant ladies are always emotional); the brother-in-law at one point argues that the heroine and the baby should come and live with him so that he can raise his heir himself; and the heroine finally decides that she's not going to be mad at the brother-in-law because he's managed to block out the rape so she should too. WHAT. In a charitable frame of mind, I will suggest that this book was published far enough back in Ye Olden Days that Beverley couldn't have a heroine who was a willing seductee, and at the very least did not set up a Flame and the Flower situation where the hero rapes the heroine, but the plotline does not age well at all and this book is not a re-read.

Spoiler

tinyflame4's review against another edition

The book starts off with a rape plotted by the victims brother and then the rapist tells her it was actually his brother and forces him to marry her. It was too much to stomach. I’ll be getting rid of this one. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape

barefootamy's review against another edition

1.0

I don't have a frame of reference for Jo's other works as this is the first series I've read by her. I'm hoping she ends up redeeming herself in another series as this one is such a struggle to like.

Our protagonist is drugged by her brother to be raped by a gay man in order to prove he's a heterosexual male. Then the gay man's brother is setup to marry the woman and her second experience with intercourse triggers memories of rape for her to the point she struggles to separate the two. Oy vey! To make matters worse there's a lengthy plot involving some notion that a Frenchwoman has secrets to share regarding Napoleon and the only man in England to seduce those secrets from her is our protagonist's new husband. Yeah, so we spend most of the book wallowing through our protagonist's loneliness of an unfaithful spouse and a pregnancy resulting from either of the unwanted sexual encounters at the beginning of the book. In the end the couple magically find common ground through lust.

kitten638897's review against another edition

Book starts with MMC raping FMC. Immediate DNF. Wish I could give it negative stars. WTF. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Rape

ellen_alt's review against another edition

1.0

Note: I did not finish this book.

I was super disappointed with this book. It is infuriating when a main character is as blase as Eleanor, and starting off a romance novel with a rape that is included only as a plot device, and treated as just a run-of-the-mill happening, with no feelings from anyone involved is just in bad taste.

seeinghowitgoes's review against another edition

3.0

I picked up the Rogue series through a recommendation on Julia Quinn's message boards. The recommendation either listed under the, 'Virgin Male' section or in the top 100. Now that I think about it, it probably was the top 100. lol but the Virgin Male section sounds better. I... like this series! The characters are often incredibly dense and make me want to scream but the progression of it all makes up for it a little.

The thing about the Rogue novels is that all the couples in the book are inevitably married with the first few chapters or well on their way. Their marriages start off on the wrong foot and the love doesn't happen til the end which is a nice change. Jo Beverley references Georgette Heyer on many occasions as her inspiration so it's no surprise that her books all seem to enjoy the same complicated circumstances.

An Arranged Marriage started off with a ludicrous concept. Eleanor Chivenham our heroine, is drugged one night and raped by The Earl of something. I forget now, because he was also drugged! Turns out her brother in an attempt to blackmail the Earl has drugged the pair of them in order to ruin Eleanor. In a bizzare twist, the Earl decides to fob the entire affair off onto his twin brother Nicholas who ends up being the one married to Eleanor.

Our heroine is raped, then the old "Sex as a Cure" stick is used. But still, the book is very untraditional in the sense that it begins with a rape, then marriage, adultery (on the Husband's side), kidnapping and a birth. Being book 1 of a series, Eleanor and Nicholas return often.