Review: Must read for fans of this series, engaging story with sweet but flawed H/h
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 27, 2014
At nearly 21, Lady Sarah craves adventure! She grew up reading her relative's ship logs and dreams of visiting America and sailing on the open ocean. She plans to stow-away on her brother's boat, but mistakenly boards his business partner's boat instead. When she comes out of her hiding place, she realizes her mistake when she sees the furious face of Ian Ross-Mackeever, heir to an earldom. Sarah and Ian both feel a strong connection, end up in bed together and as the summary states, are forced to marry once they reach New York.The second half of the book they sail back to England, spend time with the Caversham family, Ian and Lucky go to China, we meet Ian's family, and a few other events which I won't spoil as they are pretty major parts of the plot. For fans of Raven's previous books, Caversham, Lia, Lucky, Elise and Michael are essential characters in the second half of the story and you get to see how their families have grown.This is a good book with the potential to be even better. It seems like Raven really hit her stride halfway into the book, but rushed through some interesting scenes in the second half which could have been further developed. In my opinion, she spent too much time during the first half of the book with Sarah's inner thoughts: boo-hoo, I can't marry him since he feels forced, boo-hoo, he doesn't want me, etc... Repetitively. Ian's inner thoughts were much more interesting and changed and grew as the story developed. We get to read about an already good man decide to be an even better man as he faces being a husband and becoming part of a family.Sarah is fun and loving, but also impulsive and immature. She teaches Ian the value of family and he finally feels like he has a home after many years of not feeling like he belonged anywhere. Ian is ruggedly handsome, somewhat gruff and he says the wrong thing and hurts Sarah's feelings several times. When he realizes what an oaf he's been, he feels genuine remorse and wants to make it up to her. His character really grew and developed during the story and I felt like Raven did an excellent job of staying true to each of their characters. I may have wished Sarah handled some things differently, but that wouldn't have been the character Raven created.Overall, I enjoyed this book and recommend it. It should especially appeal to readers who like marriage of convenience or nautical stories. There are multiple explicit scenes which will be good or bad, depending on the reader. Raven has written an engaging story with flawed but likable characters and should be a must read for fans of this series, but can also be read as a standalone.Did you find this review helpful?  If so, please vote "yes."