Finished!
Now, see here...
The book is rather entertaining and the plot holds much promise. It's a bit silly to take in, but once you accept that it's an implausible situation in real life, you start enjoying the book.
Basically, he NEEDS to get married to get his money. She NEEDS a way to get out of her house. In a moment of rather severe lack of judgment (like really, he was drunk), Charles asks Ellie to marry him. After discovering that she's desperate enough, with her father's impending nuptials to a horrible woman, Eleanor accepts.
The banter between the couple is pretty witty and hilarious (Julia Quinn has some amazing talent with dialogue). Nonetheless, it eventually gets a bit tiring. There's an interesting conflict, which I think should have grown to be the main conflict of the book. That's why I was surprised when it was resolved rather too soon before the ending. This made me think "what else is she going to add?" Hence came my main problem. At around the ending, Quinn introduces another conflict, which was apparently there all along, but I just thought it was boring and too much. The book should have just been shorter, in any case.
It's good, but I did find that it wasn't as enjoyable as other Quinn books.
Final rating 3.5/5
