Her Baseborn Bridegroom (Vawdrey Brothers, #1)

by Alice Coldbreath

[EBookObsessed]

Medieval stories don’t usually interest me, but this one was so sweet. I just loved it.

I admit that I have an unholy interest in imperfect main characters. It seems too easy to write a romance where the gorgeous billionaire falls for the most beautiful woman to cross his path. Everyone wants to be them or be with them. Sometimes I am jaded when the hero is falling for someone who is unbelievably gorgeous.

This book is one that I actually paid $2.99 for, which is impressive since I usually only grab the free books or maybe toss out $.99, and then never read them. I already have so many books collecting dust, so why buy more? I think it was the title that caught my attention first, and then reading the information about the story I had to know about the bride to be who was “hideously misshapen and ugly.” It is written in a medieval time period, which is usually not my thing, but I had to know was this hideousness something minimal that would have been easily fixed in present times? Obviously it would be something that our hero would be able to overlook so we can get our HEA.

It was actually quite interesting to find out that there was actually nothing wrong with Linnet except that she was a petite redhead (unfashionable) with lots and lots of freckles (also unfashionable). Her guardians were so busy enjoying living in her castle and spending her money that they convinced Linnet that she was of fragile health and she needed to stay in a windowless tower away from the outdoors and from society. They then convinced everyone that poor, sick Linnet was hideously deformed so that she would never marry and have a child who would inherit the Dukedom. It was kind of sad that even the people who worked in the castle didn’t know what she looked like. She was rumored to be a hunchback. She was rumored to be an ugly “toad in a dress.” She was a prisoner in her own home but her prison bars were her supposed ill health. While Linnet is strong-willed, she didn’t know enough to rebel. She was smart and kept the books of the house, but couldn’t wander her own house to know that there wasn’t even as much staff as she was paying each month, while her aunt and uncle robbed her blind. She even paid a large sum for a wedding celebration, which she wasn’t invited to, and which the aunt and uncle were going to pretend happened, again while they pocketed the money.

What they didn’t expect was that Mason Vawdrey would be sent to let them know that his younger brother got cold feet and decided not to marry “in name only” the sickly, hunchback in the tower. Mason lets Linnet know there will be no wedding and so as not to disappoint all her guests, she proposes that Mason step in as groom. Mason’s first order of business after saying “I do” it to toss out the aunt and uncle, making sure they don’t steal all his wife’s assets as they went. And you can’t help cheering, “don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.”

Mason is an awesome hero but he is a soldier with no romantic gene. He is the bastard middle son, between two legitimate brothers. He knows that he is gruff and he knows that he is not good enough for Linnet, but even in his brutish, awkwardness, he is kind to Linnet. He is clumsy in his attempts to being a good husband but Linnet doesn’t hold it against him. Linnet comes to understand that she actually isn’t sickly, but she knows that she isn’t considered a great beauty. She hopes that Mason can come to tolerate her red hair and freckles and her boyish figure, never realizing how obsessive Mason is becoming over her hair and freckles.

We can easily see Linnet is smitten with her husband, and while Mason protests that he is in the relationship for the money, we can see that he wants Linnet herself more than the estate that comes with the marriage. They bargained for a heir who would inherit the title entailed to Linnet, but then Mason keeps changing that son to two sons then three sons, then maybe some daughters too. While there is no flowery romance, we see their relationship grow, which is something I always enjoy watching unfold in my romances.

Of course, there can’t just be two people falling in love as the only plot of the story and in this case, the aunt and uncle convince Mason’s brother to go to the King to have the marriage annulled. They start rumors to the effect that Mason climbed in Linnet’s sick bed, all but raped her and then forced her to marry him, stealing his brother’s betrothed and then throwing the aunt and uncle out of the house when they would have protected her. Of course, hearing that tale, the King calls them to Court to investigate their relationship and decide if the marriage will stand.

It makes me sound horrible, but I loved watching the stoic Mason loosing his mind over the fact that he might lose his wife. He was so gruff and unromantic but you could see the little things he was doing that professed how he was falling for Linnet and once he knew he was in real danger of losing her, he went crazy.

If I had to complain, I will say as a reviewer I read a lot of advance copies and have learned to ignore typos and punctuation issues since the ARCs I receive are still in the editing process. When I pay for a book, I do expect those books to be a finalized copy that has been proofread and edited before release. This one had lots of conversations with quotations which weren’t closed or weren’t opened, few wrong words, and an overall lack of simple proofreading. It was self-published, but the author could have had a friend read it and make notes of what needed to be cleaned up.

Overall, it was a quick, sweet story, and I might just give it a re-read to boot. I was sorry to see the end of cranky Mason and sweet Linnet.