An Outrageous Proposal

The Westcotts #5

by April Kihlstrom

For a beautiful woman, marriage equals imprisonment! Wishing to remain mistress of her own fate, she accepts a handsome man s scandalous suggestion: marry and then publicly split up, which would take them out of the marriage mart for good! But she never dreamed she would actually fall in love with a man intent on jilting her...or is he?

Genres: Romance, Regency

218 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1998

Reviews

[Kathy * Bookworm Nation · Rating 1 out of 5]

It started out good, but I lost interest around halfway through. I liked Geoffrey at first, I thought he was a rascal. Then his personality changed and he seemed more manipulative and just unlikable. I never really liked Penelope, for someone who is supposed to be so smart (we're told over and over how intelligent she is), she was pretty dumb. I skipped to the end, but thought the end was boring as well. Not the book for me.

About halfway into the book Penelope thinks Geoffrey must be gay, that is the only reason she can come up with for him not wanting to get married. Even though he tries to make it clear he is not, she won't change her mind. I thought it was silly at first, but then the storyline kept dragging on and on and I just didn't want to keep reading about it. I skipped ahead and saw that when she found out he was in fact straight she was then mad at him for deceiving her. Duh. She was the one that jumped to conclusions and refused to listen to him. Yet he was the one in the wrong? Just a dumb plot device and it ruined the book for me. Well, that and the characters ended up not being very likable.

Content: From what I read it was pretty clean. Some homosexual innuendo.

[Donnalee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Taming Of The Whatsis; not bad, no crime, gay-positive, some jerkiness

[Claire S · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have not read any of the other books in this series as they seemed too far-fetched. This one had the fake betrothal plot that I love and seemed more realistic (or less implausible). Well, I agree with Kathy's review, it started well but it went downhill. The hero seemed reckless but good hearted and the heroine seemed sensible. Both ended up behaving ridiculously and the bulk of the book was them deciding to get married then changing their minds. This went all the way to the end when there was another ridiculous plot that created misunderstanding. If you've read the other books, you might enjoy reading a bit more about the sisters. If not, I don't recommend it. I read another one of her books, A Choice of Cousins, which was better and shorter. Since this book was more expensive digitally, it makes me wonder if there was a deliberate reason to make the plot stretch beyond necessary. Since I reserve one star to books I truly loathe, this one gets two but barely.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid category romance. Part of a series about Miss Tibbles, the governess' charges. Basic lets pretend we're engaged so we can ...fill in the blank...plot but charmingly done.