Series: Spark House, #1
Traits & Tropes: friends to lovers; caregiving
Publication Date: 09.21.21
Genre/Setting: Contemporary; Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
Heat Level: 3
Rating: 4/5
After her abusive marriage, Aurora Sherborne, the now widowed Countess of Radcliff, has decided to avoid love and emotional entanglements at all costs. With her three best friends married and starting their own families, she is beginning to feel lonely and want a child of her own, but that means a marriage of convenience with no feelings attached.
Garrett Winslow, now the Duke of Corwin and grieving the loss of his beloved father, has loved Aurora since they were children. He hasn’t been back in England long from his world travels, but the distance didn’t lessen his feelings for Aurora in the slightest. Unfortunately, she keeps him firmly in his place as her brother’s best friend, leaving Garrett to use every bit of tenderness he possesses in an effort to show her the love and happiness they could have together.
The first part of this book was lovely and drew me in so much. Garrett charmed me to no end, and I loved him as a hero. He was sweet and sensitive, but he never felt weak or emasculated and I would love to see more heroes like him. My issue here was with Aurora. I’ll start by saying she went through an absolutely hellacious marriage to a monstrous man, but I don’t think that excuses how she treated Garrett. On numerous occasions she enumerates Garrett’s fine qualities and how different he is from her former husband, how good of a man he is, how he would never treat her that way, etc. She then goes on to say she could never marry him because he loves her, and she doesn’t want that. She would rather risk a husband who has no feeling for her and would treat her like an object. This complete lack of logic was maddening for me, especially as poor Garrett is just there having to suffer seeing her court other men, who are of course terrible, but she somehow can’t see this. I just wanted to shake some sense into her and even her friends grew frustrated with her nonsense. It also frustrated me that she told Garrett she would never remarry and listed out understandable reasons, even though they were still hurtful for Garrett. Where she lost me is when she suddenly decided right after this conversation that she needed to have her own children and find a man with which to enter a loveless marriage. All of her previously reasonable fears just flew out the window to be replaced with nonsensical thinking and a problem that was almost entirely of her own making. On top of that, she treated Garrett terribly, taking advantage of his friendship, and then grew incredibly jealous when he received attention from other women, even when he wasn’t reciprocating it and had been blatantly honest about wanting to marry her. Thankfully she did come to her senses eventually, but not until after Garrett had suffered much heartache and not until nearly the end of the book, leaving things to wrap up in a rather abrupt fashion in my opinion.
All in all, I loved Garrett, I enjoyed that this book was mostly driven by conversation over action. I enjoyed the dynamics between this endearing friend group and would love to know more about the sparks that were flying between Helen and Geb and if Prudence can find a new HEA after the loss of her husband. This one was just negatively affected by the heroine for me, but the hero was awesome and made it worth reading.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
https://www.bookbub.com/reviews/1343833501
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4057635523
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