The Dangerous Gentleman - Julia London

It's been a while since I've read a Julia London book. So long, in fact, that I forgot which book I read and can only remember that I did and that’s why I put this one in the TBR pile.

It was strictly business as Adrian Spence claimed the woman his brother desired. A hasty wedding, and Lilliana Dashell was his-sweet revenge on the father who disinherited him and the brother who let it happen. Their wedding night is a revelation as passionate, innocent Lilliana ignites fires Adrian tries desperately to deny. By day he is a stranger. By night he is the lover of her dreams, and she a shameless wanton in his arms. But Adrian is determined that no woman will ever possess him. And Lilliana knows that her only hope of taming this very dangerous gentleman is to unlock his deepest mysteries and open his shuttered heart to love...

I really liked how this one started. I like Marriage of Convenience stories, I like Marriage In trouble stories and sometimes I even like Revenge stories. This one seemed to have all three. Besides that I really liked both the hero and the heroine. I even understood them (although revenge like this might backfire and leave someone very unhappy). I found them interesting and wanted to know more about them. The problem was that there are too many misunderstandings, the hero has too much baggage to carry (like being abused by his father since birth), some of which he doesn't even know about (the truth is worse than he thinks).

So it started very well but it got to a point where it was too much! Too many misunderstandings, too much manipulation on the brother's part, too little action of the hero dealing with it... I liked the twists of the story, what we find out about the past but they just suffer for too long.

And in the end nothing really bad happens to the villains. It’s like the main characters suffered throughout the whole story and the villains just loose some money and property. Definitely not enough!

I found it well written and I will read London again but I sincerely hope her other characters wont have to suffer so much to get their happy ending!

Grade: C+