Elizabeth Mansfield: The Bartered Bride

Based on a reader recommendation, I picked up a couple of Elizabeth Mansfield’s Signet titles. The Counterfeit Husband was a little too groan inspiring to review, but I did like The Bartered Bride:

Lord Kittridge thinks he has made a great bargain in agreeing to marry Cassandra Chivers for 40,000 pounds of her father’s money, but his new bride turns out to be quite a handful.

Cassandra is daughter to a wealth cit, and Lord Kittridge is a returning soldier who comes home to debt and a family who has no idea of the meaning of economy. Although he is all but engaged to another, and his moral code strongly fights against the solution, when his path crosses with the daughter of a wealth fund manager and a marriage of convenience… he gets more than he bargained for.

This clean Reg. Rom is likable, well written, with nice character arcs. The plot is the quintessential marriage of convenience formula, where two strangers marry and eventually fall in love. It’s not original, or even a shining example for the genre, but its predictable and easy to read in that lazy Sunday morning (or in my case, ridiculously busy week night) way.

Cassandra has a bit of a character arc, learning to stand up for herself and demand happiness. This character arc is nice, slow and with a sweet reward. Lord Kittridge’s arc leaves a little to be desired, for although he learns the meaning of true love it was a little to breezed over to feel like a payoff. In fact, his character remains pretty private throughout, with only the briefest of glimpses into his inner life. Although you see he is a good guy, sometimes its just not enough to really care.

Generally, Elizabeth Mansfield is a fine go-to for easy, clean Regencies–although not quite at the level of a Hern or Heyer, she is a safe enough bet to sample her Signet titles now being released in digital version.

5 Stars 3.75 out of 6, a solid, formulaic clean Regency with likable H/h and no silly villanous plot twists.