From Ruin to Riches

by Louise Allen

A lord in want of a wife 

Ruined and on the run, Julia Prior is in desperate straits when she meets a gentleman with a shocking proposal. Certain he is close to death, William Hadfield, Lord Dereham, sees Julia as the perfect woman to care for his beloved estate when he is gone—if she will first become his wife.... 

Marriage is Julia's salvation—as Lady Hadfield, she can finally escape her sins. Until three years later, when the husband she believes to be dead returns, as handsome and strong as ever and intent on claiming the wedding night they never had! 

Genres: Historical Romance, Romance, Historical, Regency, Harlequin, Marriage Of Convenience, Historical Fiction

281 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 17, 2013

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

This author also writes under the name Francesca Shaw.

I have had my nose buried in a history book - fact or fiction - for as long as I can remember, but even more important to me are the places and the objects that conjure up the past. My first attempt at historical fiction at the age of eight was three pages of improbable medieval drama set in the local castle.

With a degree in geography and archaeology I love to try and 'read' the landscape and the buildings in it for clues about the past. Virtually any place can trigger ideas for plots, but I am particularly inspired by Venice, Burgundy, Mediterranean islands and the Hertfordshire and Norfolk countryside.

I live in England in a village in Bedfordshire with my long-suffering husband. He is not sure whether to be flattered or alarmed to be told he is the inspiration for all my romantic heroes! Whenever possible we escape to our cottage on the North Norfolk coast where Percy, the bossy pheasant, allows us to share the garden.

My resolution every time I start on a new plot is to plan it carefully, make copious notes first and write lots of drafts in a disciplined and orderly manner. What inevitably happens is that the story starts to write itself in my head until it gets completely out of control - meanwhile my study floor becomes a sea of open books, prints and maps and I am found sitting in the car at traffic lights, muttering dialogue. At that point I have to start writing, knowing full well that the hero and heroine are going to take over and sabotage all my attempts at discipline. It is, after all, their story.

Reviews

[Sandi *~The Pirate Wench~* · Rating 3 out of 5]

Setting: Regency England

Steam Factor: Mild

Following a very foolish elopement, Julia Prior realizes that her fiance is nothing but a cad and she finds herself forced to drive him away with a poker. As she is fleeing the scene she encounters William Hadfield Lord Dereham. Will is sick and in desperate need to find a wife who will care for not only him but his Estate after his death. And Julia is the ideal lady he feels. But shortly after their marriage Will leaves her to travel and enjoy himself with the time he has left. So for three years,
Julia has lived quietly in the country..then lo'and behold Will comes home..hale,hearty,and healthy and ready to be her husband in all ways. All falls into place for these two,but when Julia's secrets from the past threaten to destroy her new life she now must trust a man she barely knows. Although there are no surprises in this "marriage of convenience" it did have appealing characters and a solid Regency-era atmosphere. A few twists and turns to the plot, but nothing that really "wowed" me and at times felt like there could have been a little more to it. But will appeal for those who like a "sweet" romance.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book with plenty of joy, sadness, humor, and heartache. Julia made the mistake of trusting a man who claimed to love her. After convincing her to elope with him, he ravished her and then told her he never intended to marry her. When she fought back she believed she had killed him and ran. When she encountered Will she overcame her fears to help him back to his home, seeing how ill he was. When he proposed a marriage of convenience to protect his estate until his cousin could be trained to handle it she agreed. Then he left, fully expecting to die soon, but knowing his lands would be cared for. Three years later he returned, unexpectedly healthy and ready to take back control of his lands and see if his marriage could become real.

I really liked both Julia and Will. Julia started out as rather naive as far as men were concerned. That is why she was duped by Jonathan into running away with him. In spite of being panicked when she fled after hitting him with the poker, she actually kept a pretty good head and managed to get herself far away from the scene of the crime. I liked the way she overcame her own fears to help Will when she found him on the bridge and helped him home. I really enjoyed her conversation with him about estate management, which she was familiar with thanks to her late father. When that knowledge led to Will's strange proposition she was desperate enough to take him up on it. When the story resumed three years later with his return and improved health, she had become used to being the one in charge. I really enjoyed seeing the way that she and Will had to learn how to compromise and work with each other. I loved seeing her stand up to him when he would try to leave her out of everything. There were some really fun scenes with the two of them as they worked together around the estate. Julia also discovered that there was a huge difference between her one encounter with Jonathan and her relationship with Will. His tenderness and care for her caused her feelings for him to grow even more. Her biggest problem was that she had never told him about her attack on Jonathan and she feared what his reaction would be. This secret was a huge obstacle to her happiness. I had a feeling from the beginning that the issue would play a big part and it did. I loved the way that the whole thing was resolved.

Will was a fantastic hero. At the time Julia met him, he was very ill and thought to be dying. His heir was still young and in no way ready to take over the management of the estate. Talking with Julia he discovers that she is very knowledgeable about the subject. He comes up with the idea of marrying her so that she can run the estate and train Henry in what to do. If he marries her, then leaves the country and doesn't stay in contact, it will take seven years for him to be declared dead, more than enough time to do what is needed. So they married and he left the next day. Three years later, he returned healthy, having been saved by a Spanish doctor. He is ready to take back control of his land, which he had missed dreadfully, and to see if it would be possible to continue his marriage. He did not expect to find that his lands had been so well cared for that he had barely been missed. He was intent on taking back control, and it took a few days for him to realize that to sideline Julia completely would devastate her. I loved seeing the way that he learned so much about her and listened when she told him that all she wanted was to be able to share the work with him. I loved seeing him accept her for who she was and appreciate her abilities. He also quickly came to enjoy their physical relationship. His biggest concern was that he could sense that she was hiding something from him. He has a real problem with anything resembling a lack of honesty because of the miserable way his parents had treated each other and him. Just when things are going well for them, her past comes calling, and he is blindsided by his feelings of betrayal. After saying some cruel things to her he finally comes to his senses, but then has to find her. I loved his final rescue of her and the way his feelings become clear to him.

[Tasneem · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the worst books I've ever read.
I normally love Allen's work, but this book just infuriated me. Julia is incapable of telling the truth. She lies to him, she hides the truth from him when from the first, he's been nothing but kind and open with her.
A plot based on dishonesty really got to me. I stopped reading the book at one point, but then finished it because I wanted to see how it was resolved. Rubbish. Really disappointed in the plot and Allen. She has so much talent, why write this kind of junk.

[Sarah]

One of 16 ebooks you can download for free from http://www.tryharlequin.com

I used to devour 2-3 Harlequins in a day a few years ago so I couldn't resist downloading these!

[Annie Burrows · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful, enjoyable read. Louise Allen always creates such vibrant characters.

[Ayleen Julio · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hay momentos en que a una la ponen a prueba como lectora, o la retan a meterse en terrenos en los que usualmente no lo hace. En este caso, una amiga me retó a leer su género favorito y aquí estoy reseñando De la ruina a la riqueza de Louise Allen, una escritora que recién aparece en el radar.
Partiendo del argumento se puede decir que es un relato que empieza bien, con algunas referencias a los clásicos, pues la heroína por momentos está hecha a la manera de Jane Eyre y es claro que su príncipe azul es una especie de Sr. Rochester, pero no mucho. Bastante simpáticos, la verdad. Lo malo es que ya saben que en el afán de que todo termine bien, van perdiendo fuerza y contundencia en el camino... ni decir del final: acelerado -se resuelve en menos de dos capítulos- y bastante predecible.
Algo que me llama la atención de estas novelas es su ritmo narrativo: fluye como ninguno y, a pesar de lo previsible de los hechos, una sigue leyendo porque se pregunta cómo es que van a llegar a ese final.. capaz en ese punto si se puede reconocer que hay algo interesante en el libro.
Breve y con alguna que otra dosis de humor; pero no de mi preferencia. A lo mejor cuando tenga un par de décadas más y muchos gatos, pueda que me guste.

[Lucimar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Um romance sensível e uma gostosa leitura, onde uma mulher (Julia Prior) perde sua virtude e encontra, num momento de desespero apoio num homem (William Hadfield) que está as portas da morte uma proposta de casar com ela e de cuidar de sua amada propriedade. Mas, após o casamento, o quase moribundo marido viaja com intuito de morrer longe, e 3 anos depois retorna saudável e disposto a seguir em frente com o casamento. Mas o passado de Julia lhe impede que siga uma vida tranquila, pois tem segredos a esconder que podem afastar Will para sempre.

[Stevi Lin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first Harlequin book I've ever read.

WARNING : SPOILER--

The plot is simple.

It is about Julia Prior, a broken home girl who was being raped and deceived by her fiancee(to be). She ran away then she met with a rich noble man who were very sick and fell in love with her.
Then the noble man asked her to be his wife to take care of all his wealth while he was away to find a cure for his illness.

Whenever the rich noble man recovered from his illness, he came back to his castle and found the girl had hid something from him.

This is a happy ending book. ;)

[Angelique Minnaar]

I enjoyed the story, though a few places had tears welling up.
A nice light hearted read.

[Igenlode Wordsmith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked a lot of things about this book, and under a different title it could potentially have made a terrific Georgette Heyer romantic thriller along the lines of The Talisman Ring or The Reluctant Widow; practical older (e.g. mid-twenties!) heroine with a talent for estate management is pushed into a ruinous elopement by the cousins who inherit her father's property, kills her seducer in self-defence, and takes refuge in a marriage of convenience to a terminally ill husband on the understanding that she will keep the land in good heart and prevent his spendthrift young cousin and prospective heir from dissipating the estate when he is gone. There are only two problems: terrified of being seen and recognised even in her married guise, she dare not enjoy any social contacts beyond her immediate neighbourhood, and her husband turns not not to have been quite so mortally il as they had both assumed...

Unfortunately with hindsight I don't think trying to push the story into Mills & Boon format did it any favours. There are a lot of plot elements here, but most of them end up getting resolved within a brief space of time because the book is simply too short for much development (and large chunks of what space is available get occupied by repeated and energetic marital sex scenes, although not love, because even in modern romance novels that still has to be reserved for the final scene, however much copulation goes on beforehand between the parties involved).

Will comes back and wants to resume control of the estate, and Julia resents the ending of her 'regency' - but after a scene or two we are told that they have tacitly divided up the responsibilities offscreen. Will's Aunt Delia resents his return from the dead, displacing her own son's expectations - but Julia manages to soothe her down tactfully within a chapter. Will presents his wife with one of the Andulasian horses he has brought back with the intention of setting up a stud, and then we never hear anything more about stud or stallion once the point has been made in that scene about his being secure enough in his masculinity to let her ride the stallion while he continues to use his own tall gelding. They have a temporary lapse in their sex life due to a misunderstanding/misinterpretation, but it is soon cleared up. Julia is worried that, after miscarrying her seducer's child, she may be unable to bring a legitimate heir to term... but that strand pretty much disappears as well. This leads to a pleasantly harmonious married life with the only threats coming from the outside, which makes for a change from the usual catalogue of contrived misunderstandings in this sort of plot (and it's nice to see a heroine who doesn't insist on anachronistic attitudes but accepts that yes, she made her bed when she accepted this marriage for her own safety and is now going to be expected to defer to its implications) -- but it doesn't make for a terribly compelling plot, while the murder/thriller aspect pretty much disappears until the end.

Overall a lot of things seem to happen offscreen that one would expect to see played out in a full-length book, the whole sequence of Julia's early married life (or presumed widowhood), her discovery of her pregnancy, her worries about how to arrange a future for the child, and her eventual miscarriage being the most obvious. The story basically cuts straight from Julia and Will platonically in bed together after their marriage to Julia lusting after the Unknown who turns out to be a returned Will -- this is because it is a 'romance' rather than a complete novel, but in this case I don't feel that the 'cut ahead, flash back' technique works. It just feels like an interesting book that has been cut down in order to focus on the 'Mills & Boon' elements.

The plot rationale whereby Julia really cannot tell her husband the truth about her past because that will make him legally into her accomplice- the only way she can keep him out of the clutches of the justice system is if he genuinely doesn't know - is a compelling one, but again the whole ending seems to be over rather quickly and painlessly for a situation with repeated life and death stakes (Julia is in danger of being hanged, runs away, is presumed to have committed suicide, and then is found within a relatively short space of time.) And yet again an important deduction/revelation takes place off screen... I just do not feel that the format was doing this one any favours.

[Dannica · Rating 2 out of 5]

A mediocre romance. I didn't dislike it but nothing it ever surprised me, and I was annoyed by the male MC's stereotypically masculine possessiveness and need to be in control. He was more interesting when he was ill than when he recovered tbh. I wish we could have seen more of his vulnerable side than his hypermasculine side.
And also I think this confirms for me that regency romances just get on my nerves. They are so, so aware of gender norms and sexual morality. And of course they're sort of trying to subvert the norms: Look, she rides stallions and she manages estates! She's not like other women! And her husband lets her be wild and free! But ultimately in many ways I feel like the gender norms are reinforced by the sense that the wife's freedom is by the husband's allowance. And similarly you can say "Well, the FMC is not a virgin-breaking boundaries!" but the sheer amount of drama that fact causes (her husband actually thinks she's a slut when he realizes she once slept with another man), and the fact that of course it wasn't really of her own will and she didn't enjoy it, really undermine that seeming defiance of regency sexual morality. Just. It's exhausting.
I think I am done with regency romances perhaps. This book might be better for those who like their alpha males and sexual scandal. I really don't.

[Karina · Rating 3 out of 5]

La historia trata de Julia Prior cuando se encuentra huyendo de una situación desagradable y después de haber caminado y vagando por muchos días se encuentra con William Hadfield, lord Dereham, William para este momento lo había encontrado ya desahuciado y platicando con Julia se le ocurre la idea de casarse con ella y que cuide sus tierras hasta que su sobrino tome el mando dado que ella sabía el manejo de cultivos y demás y así por lo tanto se casan y él se va de viaje para pasar sus últimos días navegando y visitando tantos lugares como pueda. Sin embargo años después cuando ella ya lo cree muerto el regresa muy recuperado de salud y de igual forma tomar al mando las tierras que tanto ha amado.

No negare que me gusto la historia sin embargo me traumo mucho Julia los secretos que guardaba y diciéndolo una y otra vez ya resultaba cansado, por otro lado William para el tiempo que se desarrollaba era como muy condescendiente a mi parecer.

Vamos no fue desagradable, era lo que estaba buscando después de leer novelas no muy buenas pero tampoco puedo decir que fue excelente.

Historia: 3 Estrellas Escenas +18: 1 Estrellas

[Pamela Fernandes · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I first started reading I was expecting, a story of a medical condition. It never was mentioned what exactly William suffered from, but he devises a clever way to marry Julia knowing he was dying. When he returns, he's insufferable.
I didn't enjoy the book as much as I would have loved to because there were too many POV shifts in the same paragraph, let alone chapter. From Will to Julia, then suddenly teh words were in italics. It was hard to read it in one sitting as I found myself going back to read who said what. Also another issue is, the fact that William repeatedly mentions Julia is not beautiful. Even after he has such a visceral reaction to her, I don't know why he keeps repeating it.
The story though is fresh, unusual and not the usual harlequin run of the mill.

[Prac Agrl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Louise Allen writes good H and h, but over here i did not like the h and H was ok.
She was a sensible, intelligent lady( at times TSTL )but her repeated lies to the H did not sit well with me in spite of him telling her his parents story and abhorrence of lies.
I agree she might have been scared but given so many opportunities between them i would have expected her to but alas no.
She seemed to more in love with the estate than the hero.
It was my observation i could be wrong , overall an ok read.
H on his part was ok, but his high handedness did grate.
It would have been 3 star for me but one less for the reasons above.

[mirian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uff este libro lo tuve paralizado por un buen rato, pero cuando continue no pude parar
Es un romance de época, muy cute y mm divertido.
Los personajes tienen verdaderamente personalidad, hay diálogos y momentos en los que me reí por lo absurdo qué era.
Tienen una trama única a pesar del trope conocido, lo cual lo hace divertido y te da expectativas altas.
Hubo momentos en los que me enojé un poco pero nada importante.
El romance fue realmente chevre y cute y ayyy me derretí en algunos pequeños momentos.
3.2⭐

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Julia Prior has been abused and set up by her horrible relatives; thinking she is running away to a loving marriage she is instead in a room with a careless man who tries to rape her. She hits him on the head and escapes.
William Hadfield is dying and trying to save his families estate from ruin. He encounters Julia on the road and after some thought sees her as the solution to his problems. The are married and Will disappears.
Three years later, Will has been cured and is back in England and now he and Julia must learn to live with a marriage they both thought would end with her widowed.

[Nightwitch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pleasant but unremarkable. Anyone who reads romance novels can see the plot twists coming from a mile away, but as usual with Allen's books, the characters are pleasant and their conflicts come from a place of good intentions (although annoyingly these two are so practical that the moment(s) when they fall in love seem rather implausible).

[Gemma · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5.

Solid. Good to have a heroine with a great deal of competence and nous. Not that she's perfect... that would be boring.

I'm also a sucker for a marriage of convenience plot, and really any romance where much of the story takes place after the wedding. I'm interested in how a marriage develops.

[Boadicea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite a lot of this book is silly, but I did like the main characters (although would you really marry a stranger to leave them your house, I don't know). It took me a while to get through, because I kept putting it down to read something else, but I did finish it.

[Ash · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Emmy Neal · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't like books where the plots are founded entirely on dishonesty, but the characters had some cute dialogue and a good progression.

[Desi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leído en Octubre 2014

4.5 estrellas

Me gustó... me pareció una buena historia... sí, se que es muy cliché y todo... pero me gustó y logró entretenerme

[FOTINI · Rating 5 out of 5]

Αναπάντεχη σωτηρία...

[Debra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve always liked Louise Allen’s books. Somehow I always knew Jonathan wasn’t dead.

[Sumit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nive story line...really believable

Authors note in the end tells about the research she did to make it more authentic.

[ayiruh · Rating 3 out of 5]

i enjoyed the writing and the characters but h and H were just not suited for one another

[Yvonne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Could have been four stars but I needed 70% more grovelling from the hero.

[Mia-Maria Lorenz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imeline plot, seal on nii romantikat kui ka actionit. Väga huvitav oli!

[monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,8⭐️

[Isabelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice stand alone regency. Needed a break from a more demanding read so that served well as an easy read.