Her Scottish Groom
By
Grade : D

I’ve only known two women who married through arranged unions, neither having seen their husbands until their wedding days. Both were immigrants (though from different countries) and both had the same thing to say in general about arranged marriages: Both parties must respect each other and work at compromising until they reach a workable lifestyle or the marriage will be a disaster. In their marriages, one woman was happy and satisfied, the other miserable.

In the late 1800s, many rich American women were marrying into the British peerage. Lady Astor and Winston Churchill’s mother are two prominent examples, so the basis for the arranged marriage in Her Scottish Groom between the fictional Lord Kieran Rossburn of Scotland and Diantha Quinn, the daughter of a shipping magnate, isn’t far-fetched.

Kieran needs money badly since his family has run through their fortune and the estate needs refurbishing, while Diantha longs to escape her ruthless mother and domineering father. On the surface, their marriage looks like a win-win situation.

The first half of the book covers the last part of their engagement, wedding, and honeymoon. The little she is allowed to see him – always with a chaperone present – Diantha finds her new groom toplofty, overbearing, and shallow, while Kieran thinks of Diantha as a shy mouse with whom he will beget a child quickly so he can go back to his mistress. I also found Diantha childish and silly and Kieran overly proud and rude. While the marriage might solve their problems, I had this awful feeling it would be the beginning of mine with the book.

How can the two be brought together? By having each party extend respect and consideration to the other? By having them describe their pasts, their likes and dislikes, and their expectations for the union? Or by having sex – after the wedding, of course, since this is an arranged marriage and they are constantly chaperoned? Stephens takes the easy way out, and sex it is.

As they cross the Atlantic on their way to their honeymoon in France, Diantha falls in love with sex while her husband sets up a ship-board flirtation with a gorgeous Brazilian woman. Diantha gets jealous and cuts Kieran off, then it’s onward to their stay in Paris.

In Paris Kieran is brought up short when he realizes his wife has ties to the aristocracy since she went to finishing school in the City of Lights. He suddenly becomes more interested in her. They have more sex.

Up until this point, I could find nothing much to like about Kieran. He vaguely thought about the people back home in Scotland he wanted to help, but these thoughts are so unfocused that they made him seem feckless for not hurrying back to help them. Diantha fared even worse to my mind. She hasn’t a clue about finding out whom she’d married and doesn’t seem particularly interested in doing so. He has an invalid mother about whom Diantha never questions him. Little chances of getting to know one another slip away as do the miles to Scotland.

Suffice it to say that the couple goes back and forth from misunderstanding to sex over and over. In Scotland, even author Stephens can’t figure out what other obstacles to place between them, so she adds a jealousy-assassination plot out of the blue to fill the page count.

In the end, I don’t think either of the women I know who participated in arranged marriages would give the couple a smidgeon of a chance for happiness, and neither do I.

Reviewed by Pat Henshaw
Grade : D

Sensuality: Warm

Review Date : April 7, 2011

Publication Date: 2011/03

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