{"id":13768,"date":"2020-12-28T08:12:49","date_gmt":"2020-12-28T13:12:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=13768"},"modified":"2021-06-05T09:55:31","modified_gmt":"2021-06-05T13:55:31","slug":"the-deserted-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/13768","title":{"rendered":"The Deserted Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Deserted Heart<\/a><\/em> (2018) Mary Lancaster (Unmarriageable)<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

Bringing her brothers home from school, a thick fog forces them to stop at an inn. But they enter to discover not a soul around, even though the doors were unlocked and everything inside looked normal. Since it is too dangerous to continue, they settled in, and are surprised when a lord and his servant are also stopped by the fog and seek shelter.<\/p>\n

Charlotte Maybury loves her chaotic family, even if they don’t appreciate her. She is the unmarriagable daughter, with a weak leg and a hint of a stutter. And she doesn’t really mind, since society holds no interest for her.<\/p>\n

The Duke of Alvan needs to marry, so he is heading to Overton to propose to Thomasina Maybury, the beautiful oldest daughter, who was interesting enough to catch his eye during the season. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo, he\u2019s coming to look you over again and see if you\u2019re up to being a duchess?\u201d Horatio said. <\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t be so vulgar, Horry,\u201d Thomasina snapped. \u201cYou have no idea what you\u2019re talking about, for it isn\u2019t remotely like that.\u201d <\/p>\n

Actually, Charlotte thought that is was almost exactly like that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But Thomasina’s younger sister, Charlie, catches his eye, and the more time he spends with his family, the more interested he becomes in Charlie, rather than Thomasina.<\/p>\n

She nodded. \u201cIt must be hard to give up your dreams.\u201d <\/p>\n

He turned his head quickly and met her gaze. \u201cWhat of your dreams?\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cOh, girls are not meant to have heroic dreams.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This was a cute story, with lots of humor, and there is a mystery subplot that was interesting, and I enjoyed it while reading it, but once finished, its flaws became apparent. Charlotte is too perfect–to kind and loving and forgiving. Once the Duke sees Charlotte as worthy, her siblings are suddenly falling all over each other to ask for her forgiveness to how shabbily they treated her. The Duke is moody and brooding, yet able to pull himself out of his depressive episodes on his own. The Duke’s sister is charming and witty and immediately becomes fast friends with Charlotte. And everything works out perfectly in the end, for everyone.<\/p>\n

It’s a lot, and once I was out of the story it didn’t hold together especially well.<\/p>\n

There was also a sex scene that was seemingly tacked on just to have a sex scene, which: ugh. Luckily, it was easily skimmable, since there was little dialog.<\/p>\n

So, for as immersive as the story was while I was reading, in the end it was disappointing.<\/p>\n

Publisher : Dragonblade Publishing, Inc
\nRating: 7\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Deserted Heart (2018) Mary Lancaster (Unmarriageable) Bringing her brothers home from school, a thick fog forces them to stop at an inn. But they enter to discover not a soul around, even though the doors were unlocked and everything inside looked normal. Since it is too dangerous to continue, they settled in, and are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[193,30,292,33,26,56],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-13768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-7-10","category-british","category-ebook","category-historical","category-romance","category-sexual-content","tag-boinking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-3A4","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5668,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/5668","url_meta":{"origin":13768,"position":0},"title":"A Fatal Waltz","author":"Michelle","date":"February 23, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"A Fatal Waltz (2008) Tasha Alexander Set in 1891 This finds Lady Emily, Ivy, and others at a political house party--a party where the host is making it quite clear he will do everything in his powers to break Emily's engagement to Colin. 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