MrsJoseph: Books, Life & Wine

Please note: This review is still in progress.

I've had a bad 2013 so far, health-wise.

For me, at least, it's been very bad. I've lost a lot of interest in my hobbies. Medication has had me staring at walls like a zombie.

I read this book for the first time years and years ago. Never able to find it again, no matter how hard I looked.

[At the beginning of] this year, for some strange reason, I just had to find this book again. I was desperate and I had to know. Thanks to the wonderful ladies and the Romance Forum Refugees and SB Sarah at Smartbitchestrashybooks with her Help a Bitch Out section...I found myself in possession of the name of this book.

SCORE!!!!!!
This has been the best book for me to read while sick. It was just about the only book I’ve been able to read…all year. Wow. I love this book. I swear I’ve read it like eight times since I bought it. Thank goodness for this book. To be really honest…I bought the ebook…then I went and bought the MMPB, too. Yeah. It’s like that.

I’ve read this book again and again since I bought that first ebook copy. In a way, the relationship I have with this book is more important to me the this review I’ve been trying to write (and this dang review isn’t going well at all).

Ok, so. Now you know how I feel about the book…let’s try to get on to the review.

Review
What does a ruthless man bent on revenge do when the instrument of his revenge feels that he is most handsome, talented, noble, generous, kind and virtuous? That he can do no wrong? That he must be protected at all costs?

He marries her, of course!

Simon, Earl of Blade, is intent on destroying the family that caused his father to commit suicide. His chosen form of revenge is to marry the financial genius who is keeping that family – the feckless, flighty Faringdons – afloat. Little did Simon know that Emily would lead him on a merry chase that would end in love.

Emily is the epitome of someone who lives in a world populated by rainbows and butterflies. Most people are good in her eyes and there was no one better – to Emily – than Simon, Earl of Blade.

I do so love the way Emily saw Simon. She saw goodness in his every action and virtue in his every deed. Time and time again Simon was foiled by Emily’s lofty thoughts of him. Each time the Simon was reaching for some well-deserved revenge, he would be thwarted by Emily and her constant belief that he was the best thing since sliced bread.

In order to get the ball rolling on his revenge, Simon started writing Emily. The two maintained contact until Simon thought that Emily could be enamored of him (which she was). He then travelled to her small country town, wooed and married her. Almost all of it with the intention of harming her family. I said “Almost” because Simon originally had no plans to marry Emily and certainly had no plans of falling in love with her.

But by the end of the book Simon realized that – not only did Emily love him to distraction – he loved Emily as well. And once Simon admitted to himself that his future [with Emily] was more important than his revenge (and the past) he realized that he was happy.