Review: Never a Gentleman by Eileen Dreyer

Never a Gentleman
~Eileen Dreyer

Mass Market Paperback: 480 pages
Publisher: Forever
Publish Date: April 1, 2011
ISBN-10: 9780446542067
ISBN-13: 978-0446542067
ASIN: 0446542067

From Goodreads:
HE HIDES HIS TRUE COLORS . . .
Miss Grace Fairchild is under no illusions about her charms. Painfully plain, she is a soldier's daughter who has spent her life being useful, not learning the treacherous ways of the ton. She may have been caught in a scandal with society's favorite rogue, but how can she marry him when it means losing herself?

WHILE SHE HIDES HER TRUE SELF . . .
Diccan Hilliard doesn't know which of his enemies drugged him and dumped him in Grace's bed, but he does know the outcome. He and Grace must marry. To his surprise, a wild, heady passion flares between them. Yet Diccan is trapped in a deadly game of intrigue Grace knows nothing about. Will his lies destroy Grace just as he realizes how desperately he needs her? And how can he hope for a future with her, when an old enemy has set his murderous sights on them both?

Grace Fairchild is a soldier's daughter, on her way to Dover. She wakes up in Cantebury, in the arms of Diccan Hilliard, a notorious rake. Neither knows how they got there. To save Grace's reputation as a lady and Diccan's reputation as a gentleman, they quickly marry.

Grace is devastated, she'd been planning on finally living life on her own terms, no longer traveling the world with her father, settling down and raising horses. Diccan is a spy, and after this incident he's not sure who to trust.

Once they get to London and Diccan tries to figure out the political intrigue he's involved in, he gets caught up in lies and deceptions, and while his enemies are trying to destroy him, he is slowly destroying Grace.

My thoughts: From perusing Goodreads and Amazon, it's obvious this book has created quite a stir, however, I received this book from the publisher and hadn’t read any reviews before I started reading it. The back blurb sounded good and I thought I’d settle in for a nice Marriage of Convenience historical.

I'm just going to get straight to the point with a High 5/Low 5:
*highlight spoilers (1, 2, and 5) to view*

Here's what I had problems with:
1. Her UNCLE brought her down to watch her husband having sex with his mistress? Her UNCLE?!?
2. As she's watching her husband have sex with his mistress she's getting aroused? No way.
3. I couldn't believe her request to her husband after that.
4. We get it, she's plain. Maybe even ugly. I had a hard time believing all the people who told her that she was ugly and treated her so badly.
5. Diccan's continued mistreatment of Grace. Even though he was "undercover", he had to have known that his repeated insults were unforgivable; especially after he saw how everyone else treated her. spoiler--> I had hoped that he was only giving the illusion of cheating, since they were just married... I knew he wouldn't be cheating on his new wife, right? Wrong!

What I liked:
1. Kate and Bea. They were great friends and I wish she would have unburdened herself to them sooner.
2. I loved that Grace had such a faithful following in her Grenadiers. I wish she had married one of them...
3. Grace's memories of traveling abroad. Her adventures and her love of color were a nice surprise.
4. I loved when Grace stood up to Diccan at Longbridge; we hear so much about Grace's steely resolve, it was fun to witness firsthand.
5. The scenes in the latter half of the book where she was "ill" were wonderfully written and had me all wrapped up in Grace's misery. Hubs actually looked over at me questioningly when I whispered "oh, honey" to poor Grace.

So, while the writing was wonderful and the political intrigue was very good, I couldn't get past "the incident" and the actions that accompanied it.

My Rating:

This book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.