sassysono 's review for:

Slightly Married by Mary Balogh
5.0

Book 1 of the Bedwyn family.
Very sweet.

The second son of a duke, Colonel Lord Aiden Bedwyn is a stoic, brave military man who prides himself on his honour and doing his duty. When a junior officer is mortally wounded on the battlefield, Aiden swears to the man he will return to England to personally visit the man's sister and ensure her protection.

Eve is a generous, kind-hearted country girl who has a propensity for opening her home to those society would rather ignore, including an ex-convict, a pair of orphans, an amputee, an intellectually disabled boy, a former brothel's cook and an unwed mother. Her father was a wealthy Welshman who owned a coal mine. After his death Eve was given a large inheritance and the ownership of her family's estate, with the proviso that she married a gentleman within a year.

For romance reasons relating to her inheritance, Eve and Aiden enter a marriage of convenience. What follows is a gentle, slow-burn romance that develops so subtly, that it seems to sneak up out of nowhere and become a passionate and deeply abiding love that is truly believable.

This book contains mildly descriptive love scenes.