How to Tame a Willful Wife
When Anthony Carrington, Earl of Ravensbrook, agrees to marry an old friend’s daughter to save the man from crushing debt, he expects to gain a quiet, biddable young wife. What he gets instead is Caroline Montague, a stallion-riding, knife-wielding young miss who makes up in bravado what she lacks in experience. The stage is set, then, for a classic tug-of-war between a hero and a heroine who both suffer from explosive tempers and stubborn temperaments. Billed as a retelling of The Taming of the Shrew, this tale has a bit too much angst and too little levity for it to be considered a true retelling. A bigger issue is the book’s mood, which seems more in keeping with the medieval historical novels English has penned in the past (The Queen’s Pawn, 2010; To Be Queen, 2011) than with the Regency-era romance it’s supposed to be. Still, English clearly enjoyed crafting a capable heroine who is less shrew than spitfire and pitting her against the autocratic and unyielding Anthony and does so with entertaining results. --Taina Lagodzinski