Sweet Disorder

Nick Dymond came back from the war wounded, both physically and mentally. Besides the bullet that left him limping, he's deeply depressed and he has isolated himself in his quarters. Until the day his mother visits and tells him that if he doesn't help his younger brother win the elections in Lively St. Lemeston he'll be cut off. But what really convinces him is when she says she has made a bet with his father that Nick could not do it ... So off to Lively St. Lemeston Nick goes, with the mission to convince Phoebe Sparks, a widow in possession of a vote only her husband can cast, to remarry to a man who will vote for his brother. Phoebe, however, has no intentions of ever getting married again. Even though both parties are trying to convince her to marry the suitor of their choosing, she is perfectly content as a widow and, even though she has always supported Nick's party, she's not willing to give up her life for anything. Except for her little sister. When their mother throws her out of the family home because she's pregnant at sixteen, Phoebe sees no other option than to marry one of the potential suitors and therefore securing her sister's future. There is no other way considering her sister refuses to name the father stating simply that there is no point, since he can never marry her. Which obviously means he's already married. So the plan is to send her out of town till the baby is born and then placing it with a nice family. Thus Phoebe agrees to meet both suitors and choose the lesser evil. The candidate from Nick's party is obviously a good person. He's a baker and agrees to the marriage because he's heavily in debt, but is soon becomes apparent that they have nothing in common except the fact that they both need money. The other party's candidate, however, seems much more suited to Phoebe considering he's a wealthy widower with a young daughter and Phoebe never had children of her own... Nevertheless, Phoebe and Nick keep spending time together, initially with the excuse of him trying to convince her but eventually simply because they enjoy each other's company. It becomes fairly obvious that they like each other but even after he convinces her that being from different social statutes doesn't bother him at all, there is a revelation that changes everything. And can keep them apart forever... I liked Nick and Phoebe so much. He thinks he’s worthless because of his limp, but she doesn’t really care about that and is obsessed with his arms (which I totally get). She, on the other end, believes he will never be interested in her because she’s from an inferior social class, plus she’s fat and a little clumsy, and she would rather read and write than clean the house (which I also totally get) but he thinks she’s just perfect! Oh, and the scenes where they are working together at her brother-in-law’s paper are so amazing! Also, her brother-in-law has an awesome secondary story in the book. Perhaps my least favorite thing was the political intrigue but it’s as much a part of the story as the romance, and I’m sure it appealed to a lot of people, it’s just that I don’t really care for politics neither current nor from the past. I already got the rest of the books in the series and I’m particularly curious with the third one. And to think if I hadn’t won this book in a contest I would probably never have read it… COYER Scavenger Hunt: Read a book you've won in a giveaway