From Waif to Gentleman's Wife by Julia Justiss - Part of the Wellingford Family Glom

July 11, 2018
Missing Sparkle Alert!!! 

http://www.juliajustiss.com/
Welcome to the third book in the series and two of the nicest bland people in the world. From Waif to Gentleman’s Wife presents us with two people who are the same. Yes, the hero and heroine think the same, act the same, want the same and are both really nice people. And, they lack spark.

Joanna Merrill is a widow who is down on her luck, out in the rain, drudging to her brother’s house. She has just been fired from her governess job because she was caught in a compromising position by her employer’s wife. Now the person she was caught with happened to be Joanna’s employer and he was forcing himself on her. Of course, his wife believes Joanna was seducing her husband. So it’s out the door, in the rain, with no money. As she’s slogging through the rain and mud she is unaware that her brother is no longer at the estate he was supposed to be stewarding. He was either fired or kidnapped – a mystery for the next book. Instead, in his place is Sir Edward Greaves.

Now, Edward is disguised as just plain old Ned Greaves. You see he was attacked on his way to the estate by a bunch of people who don’t like aristocrats. So, he is keeping his true identity a secret. He is trying to find his attackers. This means that he must keep a secret from Joanna, which is a bad thing because she has trusts issues. But don’t feel too bad, because he’s sad he has to keep a secret from Joanna and he worries about it allllll the way through the book. He constantly thinks about what will happen when she finds out. In fact, there is a lot of thinking in this book.

Joanna thinks about Ned, Ned thinks about Joanna, Joanna thinks lustful thoughts about Ned, and then she feels guilty because of those thoughts. Ned thinks lustful thoughts about Joanna, and then he feels bad because he’s got a secret. He shouldn’t be thinking lustfully about Joanna. Of course, there is something nefarious going on in the village and Ned also thinks about that.

The problem with all the thinking going on between Joanna and Ned was, even with allllll that thinking, thinking, thinking, there wasn't any spark between the two of them. I started drifting away in this story. Yes, I finished the story but I was disappointed. This is one time when the main characters needed to be a little different. They were both really nice people, but there wasn’t anything about them that was interesting. And, all that thinking gave me a headache.

Time/Place: Regency England
Sensuality: Warm