I know Bliss Bennet slightly. If she squints and thinks hard she might remember me. Even though our acquaintanceship is barely there, I still felt trepidation before I started reading her Regency romance, Not Quite A Marriage. What if it was terrible? And what if I bump into her again? (I had this experience recently with someone from my day job who had published a Holocaust novel that was so blunderingly anti-semitic -- every Jewish character was both stupid and greedy -- that I literally threw it in the trash, and I have not been able to meet this person's eye since.)
Luckily, my fears were entirely unfounded. Not Quite A Marriage is an outstanding Regency romance.
The plot is fairly standard. Hero Spencer left his wife, heroine Philadelphia, years ago. Now he has matured and comes home to make amends, but Philadelphia does not want him back.
What I loved about this book is that I learned real history from it. When Spencer left his wife he volunteered to work for the British government in Sierra Leone. He has now returned to London, and his efforts to improve Britain's actions in Sierra Leone serve as the backdrop to the plot. Did you know that the British navy would hijack ships carrying people who had been captured to be sold into slavery, bring them to Sierra Leone, and more or less free them? I had no idea. Bennet is never didactic, and it was a delight to read a novel that addressed the broader context in which Regency England existed.
I was also very happy with Bennet's treatment of the book's villain, Spencer's father. He is presented as a vile narcissist (a DSM-5 narcissist who falls apart if not receiving admiration, not a Kardashian narcissist who obsesses about their own looks). I was worried that the book would end as so many do with him having a change of heart and suddenly becoming a loving old man. He didn't; he ended the book every bit as unpleasant as he began. In writing him this way, Bennet showed that she has the same courage of her convictions as her main characters do.
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