Marriage at His Convenience by Jacqueline Baird

First Published: 01 August 2001
Publisher: Harlequin
Pages: 192
Format: Mass Market Paperback
Finished Date: 23 November 2011

Blurb from Goodreads

Amber's multimillionaire Greek boyfriend, Lucas Karadines, informed her that he was getting married—to someone else....

Five years later, Amber has put Lucas behind her—until she inherits half his company. Lucas, who's now single again, knows the only way to keep control is for him to marry Amber. But how can she consider marrying him at his convenience—when, five years before, she was worthy only of being his mistress...?

My Rating

My Review

I didn’t enjoy this book. I felt most of it was rather disjointed and the two characters spent an inordinate amount of time having sex. It was like they built their relationship upon sex rather than mutual respect and love. And when it came right to the end, I really really could not see the ‘love’ both of them claimed to feel. It seemed to me to be something more like lust. Or rather, purely lust.

This is one of the rare books where I dislike both the main characters. Lucas was a not very nice person. To put it simply, he was a jerk. Amber was better than Lucas, yes, but I just don’t understand why she always took whatever Lucas was doing to her without really standing up for herself. I mean, when he left her the first time, she practically begged him not to. For me, the moment a heroine begs the hero like that, I lose all respect for her.

The beginning of the book was still ok actually. I could feel the hurt emanating from Amber when that jerk Lucas left her. I mean, seriously. He couldn’t have the courtesy to tell her earlier before actually engaging himself??? Gosh. What a jerk.

Uhm, the storyline was pretty simple. Usual thing of guy wants to go get married, then girlfriend not good enough, so break up. Few years later, get back together. Fall desperately in love. The end. Really. That’s what the book was about.

It wasn’t the storyline that made me dislike the book. It’s the dialogue and the behaviour of the characters. Both of them were unlikable. I was just bored reading the book.

You know, I really don’t know what to say about this book. It just isn’t to my tastes. When the confession of love part came, I was very skeptical about Lucas’ words. I mean, not even a bit of his actions showed that he loved her. Ok fine, maybe just a little bit. But I simply could not believe he loved her. As for Amber, let’s not even talk about her. She’s like trying to be strong, yet she simply can’t resist temptation. I mean, you’re freaking annoyed with the guy. He broke your heart five years ago. And you can’t even resist him? Gosh.

There was little to no character development within the book. Sure, the book wasn’t rushed, but most of the time, I couldn’t figure why a character did what he/she did. It just wasn’t believable. The pace was alright but I need to see the characters at least having a little bit of an epiphany or something. Its like, after 5 years, nothing changed. They were no different from before.

Sigh, I think this review has gone on far longer than it should have. Needless to say, I didn’t like the book. Yes, it aroused some feelings of anger and ‘omg he’s such a jerk’ kind of feelings in me. But other than that, I really didn’t feel anything for this book. Halfway through, I almost stopped reading. This book was really a disappointment. The blurb looked so so good. Oh well!