The Reason Why

by Barbara Cartland

People often wondered what nation the great financier, Francis Markrute, originally sprang from. He was now a naturalized Englishman and he looked English enough. He was slight and fair, and had an immaculately groomed appearance generally-which even the best of valets cannot always produce. He wore his clothes with that quiet, unconscious air which is particularly English. He had no perceptible accent-only a deliberate way of speaking.

Genres: Romance

Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1911

About the author

Born in 1901, Barbara Cartland started her writing career in journalism and completed her first book, Jigsaw, when she was just 24. An immediate success, it was the start of her journey to becoming the world’s most famous and most read romantic novelist of all time. Inspiring a whole generation of readers around the globe with her exciting tales of adventure, love and intrigue, she became synonymous with the Romance genre. And she still is to this day, having written over 644 romantic fiction books.
As well as romantic novels, she wrote historical biographies, 6 autobiographies, plays, music, poetry and several advice books on life, love, health and cookery – totalling an incredible 723 books in all, with over 1 billion in sales.
Awarded the DBE by Queen Elizabeth II in 1991 in honour of her literary, political and social contributions, she was President of the Hertfordshire branch of the Royal College of Midwives as well as a Dame of Grace of the Order of St John of Jerusalem and Deputy President of the St John Ambulance Brigade.
Always a passionate advocate of woman’s health and beauty, she was dubbed ‘the true Queen of Romance’ by Vogue magazine in her lifetime. Her legend continues today through her wonderfully vivid romantic tales, stories that help you escape from the day to day into the dramatic adventures of strong, beautiful women who battle, often against the odds, eventually to find that love conquers all.
Find out more about the incredible life and works of Dame Barbara Cartland at www.barbaracartland.com

Reviews

[Melluvsbooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

The heroine was too cold for me. The misunderstanding went on for way too long. And the hero was not assertive enough. I was hoping for some good angst, but their pride and determination to not show their emotions made it difficult to feel anything but frustration. It gets 3 stars just for the writing and the fact that I was compelled to read til the end, despite being a little bored with their self-inflicted drama.

[Tucinkata · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5
"Какви чудни създания са жените! Всеки мъж би могъл да се справи с тях, ако взима под внимание темперамента им, а не думите им."

[Rosanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Countess Zara is recently widowed and poor. She has a half brother that she is responsible for and her uncle persuades her to marry a man she doesn't know so that this half brother will be taken care of with her uncle's riches. But she is very much against the marriage and considers it to be a degradation to sell herself in this way. She is also highly traumatized by the abusive relationship with her first husband and does not like men. Enter the hero! The cultivated aristocrat Tristram Tancred who has agreed to marry Zara because he has fallen for her at first sight, not for monetary reasons as she believes!

The time span of this novel is a few weeks and basically chronicles the honeymoon and after, and Tristram's disappointment to discover that his wife hates him and thinks he is a brutish animal! I found this novel to be a fun and fast read, with a great deal of the token Glyn histrionics in almost every scene. I liked the hero and his interest in "reasoning things out" and confronting problems by trying to imagine his wife's perspective as well as analyzing his own. I also like it when characters from authors' other novels pop up randomly in books, and this one makes brief mention of Hector and Theodora from Glyn's Beyond the Rocks. The "Crow" from Beyond the Rocks also shows up here as a peripheral character.

[Myfanwy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading Elinor Glyn novels is a bit like meeting the parents of someone you know really well. Suddenly, all their weird quirks make sense. If you want to understand literally anything about the genre conventions of romance novels, Elinor Glyn is probably the place to start.

This book also offers an interesting glimpse into upper class English life pre-First World War, and all the various convulsions the aristocracy were experiencing at the beginning of the 20th century. Sort of like Downton Abbey played straight. Included in those convulsions are several lengthy discussions about how the aristocracy are being repressed and “racial differences” in which ‘race’ refers to both Italians and poor people. All those American heiress marrying peers? Mixed-race marriages baybee. Anyway, the English are great.

The story is honestly kind of meh, since most of the drama hinges on some frankly wild misunderstandings and bizarre secrets. Zara, the heroine, is the worst offender, and she spends most of the book believing insane things based on limited evidence and refusing to provide pertinent facts, although this is attributed to her Tragic Past and being Half Foreign. Tristram, the hero, is less insane, if only because he spends most of the book being accused of insane things and being denied pertinent information, although he does get to do some wild speculation of his own, especially towards the end of the book, where he also threatens to kill Zara (in his head) when he believes she’s having an affaire.

I can’t help but feel like this book would have been more interesting had it instead focused on Francis Makrute, Zara’s uncle, a fabulously wealthy financier with impeccable manners and dubious antecedents and all of the insane things he does to woo Lady Ethelride Montfitchet, the daughter of a Duke and Tristram’s cousin.

[Patrizia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Erano questi i romanzi che tenevano sveglie fino a notte fonda le nostre madri e le nostre zie (e forse le nostre nonne); e, visto che anch'io, quasi un secolo dopo, mi son lasciata trascinare dalla lettura, posso perdonare a Elinor Glyn un bel po' di colore, baroni polacchi o austriaci e principi russi, scontri mortali e bambini sofferenti. Posso perdonarle anche un'eccessiva attenzione alla 'razza', intesa da lei più che altro come 'lignaggio': quando scriveva, questa parola non aveva ancora dispiegato tutta la sua sinistra potenzialità.
Non le perdono però di aver trascinato l'incomunicabilità tra i due protagonisti ben oltre il lecito: quattro o cinque capitoli di malintesi potevano essere tranquillamente tagliati senza che la storia ne soffrisse.

[ReadToBreathe · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 Stars
It was just OK, l didn't love the hero in this book I thought he was too mushy

[Menna Fouad · Rating 2 out of 5]

The hero was terrible .. he was saying all over the story that he loved the heroine and he didn't act like that I mean why didn't he try to know her better first before approaching her physically