
Destroyed & Restored The Baron's Courageous Wife
Reviews

My goodness, I can't remember the last time I read a book with 2 MC who made self-flagellation such a main life goal. It frankly quickly became tiresome. There were also so many unbelievable and contradictory plot elements, which ultimately spoiled the book for me. First off there's Adelaide. I didn't get her at all. She is afraid of her own shadow because her father has an anger management issue and frequently has outbursts of temper. I'm not trying to downplay growing up with that (been there, done that) but she acts as if he physically beat her regularly - cringing away from people, afraid to make eye contact, afraid to speak at times, and I think she spent at least 30% of her time on the page trembling over something or other. Yet! She allowed (view spoiler)[her older brother's friend to seduce her 2 years before the story opens, which results in a pregnancy. What happened in those 2 years so that she went from pre-marital sex (obviously highly frowned upon for an upper class woman in those times) to trembling because Matthew wants to hold her hand? (hide spoiler)] She plays the part of the trembling (always trembling) (view spoiler)[virgin on her wedding night, yet she's obviously not. Why is she so afraid of the sex act when she's already done it? The author never explains or references any particular trauma, etc. She had sex willingly with the other guy. (hide spoiler)] Then there's Tillie. Tillie was supposed to be 2 years old, yet she spoke full and complex sentences rather more like a 4-5 year old. Why would her father, (view spoiler)[by all counts a man who is about appearances, who physically abuses his wife, ignores his son, verbally abuses his daughter and has a gambling addiction and drinking problem (hide spoiler)] allow a bastard child to live in their house and be raised as (view spoiler)[his son's child? (hide spoiler)] And speaking of Bart, what was the point of (view spoiler)[bringing him back into the story as a threat? He didn’t know about Tillie and that whole plot point kinda served no purpose. (hide spoiler)] The ending was a complete wtf for me. She finally decides to (view spoiler)[stand up for herself with her father and speaks her mind about how he has hurt her. Based on just that, he has a sudden and total change of heart after being an abusive alcoholic gambling addict for decades. (hide spoiler)] Nope, I don't buy it. Similarly with (view spoiler)[her brother, who was at best a lazy arrogant asshole following in his father's footsteps - one heart to heart and their relationship has been restored. (hide spoiler)] Also nope. There were so many things that I just didn’t buy: (view spoiler)[Adelaide's family letting her go on as normal despite a pregnancy and then keeping the kid, the overly dramatic fright levels she had around her husband despite him being completely non-threatening, the lack of family disgrace at her father basically selling his daughter, her father and brother’s abrupt change of heart, her sister’s appearance that renders them all bastards (yet no one will find out despite tons of people knowing the real story?). The duel! I also don't buy that Matthew’s mother was OK with her son marrying into all of this. It's unrealistic that a dowager countess would be perfectly fine with their son marrying a woman who had a child out of wedlock and then brought their bastard to the marital home to raise - much less all of the rest of it. (hide spoiler)]