Forced Offer

by Gloria Gay

Author's Forced Offer was revised for typos and grammar on September 2007At the age of 13, when trespassing on woods adjacent to her family's land, Belinda Presleigh sees Richard Berrington, who has just come home from the war, swimming naked in a stream. From that moment on she can see no one but him and locks this painful love in her heart, knowing that exposure would only bring ridicule. She knows that she cannot compete with the beautiful girls to whom he is attracted. Her mother, though, having lost her eldest daughter, Roselle, to pneumonia, has hopes of regaining her lost social status through Belinda, and plots to place Richard, who has now become an earl at his father's death, in a compromising situation with Belinda, forcing him to an offer of marriage.Belinda realizes her mother's plot too late, and yet, when forced to decide her future, it is not her mother's overbearing insistence that convinces her to accept an offer of marriage she knows has been forced on the earl, but the realization that this is the only chance at happiness she will ever have, for she cannot envision a life in which she will never see Richard Branston again.Three idyllic days spent travelling with her new husband, who has softened somewhat toward her, leave Belinda totally unprepared for the violent and dangerous rejection she encounters from his family at his home, Winterhill. book authorsden.com/gloriagay

Genres: Historical Romance, Historical

220 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 10, 2001

About the author

gloriagay.com

My love of reading and writing goes back to my discovery of Nancy Drew, The Dana Girls and Judy Bolton mysteries, which I read by the truckload.

From those early books I went on to read the classics and alternating with classics I would read gothics, and it was "Rebecca", which revived a dream of childhood to become a writer. A letter from Daphne Du Maurier, in reply to my letter to her spurred me into writing a gothic novel. After that I became addicted to Regency romances,

Reviews

[Katie RA. · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book started with the reluctant Belinda and her mother on they're way to their hosts wine cellar to meet with Belinda's "secret" crush, Richard. But the truth, of course, is that Belinda's hussy of a mother engineered the whole thing up so that Belinda would be compromised by the Earl which would result to a FORCED OFFER from him and of course she succeeded.

I am honestly a sucker for themes like this and I love reading about plain/mousy/shy/wallflower/weird heroines who end up getting their prince but despite the fact that we've got both of them here, it didn't work out for me because I didn't believe the romance for 1 sec. I mean how can you fall in love with each other when you never had even 1 decent conversation? Sure, they are compatible in bed but that's hardly a reason to fall in love.

The h, yeah, I could sympathize with her (for all that she'd been through here, who wouldn't? Poor girl) but she was too much of a doormat so that "Girl! get some spine!" was my favorite word of the day.

The H was just....well.. not much of a hero. I would've rather the h ended up with his best friend.

The villain was just plain nasty. Ugh, shes a total b**. And what the H's sis did to the h was unforgivable.


Anyway, I did enjoy this book and it did stir a few feelings from me which hasn't happened for quite sometime now in latest my readings. I wouldn't have minded if the author added 100 or so pages more providing that it would be for the H's grovelling scenes and the h taking a bit of revenge and of course the real romance story.