Heartless

by Jaimey Grant

[Cocktails and Books]

Hartley St Claire, Duke of Derringer is forced to marry by his thirtieth birthday in order to maintain his inheritance so he finds the first woman he can and sets off to marry her. He plans to dump her at his country estate and then continue on as he did before. His wife, Leandra, awakens something in Hart that he doesn't wish to put a name to. But he has no time to reflect upon his new wife and his feelings as he tries to find his cousin, Gabriel, and determine who's out to kill him.

The story was interesting and for the most part very enjoyable. The author created two characters who managed to get under my skin in a short amount of time. I wanted the two of them to find their way to each other, because you could tell immediately they belonged together. Even the suspense part of the storyline was intriguing and kept you guessing until close to the end.

There were two things that kept this from being a four star rating: the quirkiness of the way the story was written and the abrupt ending.

By quirkiness, I'm talking about the scene changes sometimes being a bit abrupt, or items thrown out in conversation that seemed very vital to the story but then were never mentioned again. How we never really got a history of just what Hart had been up to prior to finding himself in need of a wife and why he had so many enemies. Why there was such disdain between his relations (and Leandra's for that matter). Those little tidbits could have taken a good story and make it great, in my opinion. And as far as the ending, it was just abrupt. It was like eavesdropping at an open door and then having it shut in your face just when things started to get good. Sure we got what we wanted, sort of, in the end but I could have been finished off a bitter neater.