No Man’s Bride is the first book in a new series called Misadventures in Matrimony. It features four friends who form the “Spinsters’ Club” and swear never to marry. They all have different reasons for this. Some are strong willed. One wants to be a pirate (yes, really). The heroine of this book, Catherine Fullbright, grew up with an abusive jerk for a father, and she figures all men are the same.

Catherine plans to live and die as a spinster, but unfortunately, her father will have none of it. Her little sister Lizzy, the pet of the family, is engaged to be married. At the last minute, Catherine’s dad decides that she can’t marry unless Catherine marries first. He tells her to choose someone, and threatens to marry her to some beefy, drunken lout if she doesn’t make her own pick. Catherine is naturally horrified, so she decides to derail Lizzy’s engagement, hoping that her fiancé, Quint Childers, will realize that Lizzy is a spoiled brat. Quint doesn’t believe it, and Catherine makes a fool of herself in the process. But her evil dad comes up with a new plan: he drugs Catherine and Quint, and has them marry each other instead. I know this doesn’t really make much sense, but basically he decides at the last minute that the beautiful Lizzy can probably make a better match. Catherine has some awareness of what’s going on, but she is so afraid of being wed to a thug instead that she goes along with her father’s plot.

When Quint wakes up in bed with Catherine instead of Lizzy, he is understandably upset. At first he blames Catherine for the deceit, and tries to find a way out of the marriage. Catherine’s experience has taught her that she will likely be beaten, so she decides to leave the house without clothes (her father took them). She walks down the street in a sheet, making a complete spectacle of herself. Quint chases her down and brings her home. He doesn’t beat her, but Catherine is sure that it’s coming. Her suspicions seem to be confirmed when Quint insists on taking her to his country home. She is afraid to be alone with him, but he thinks escaping London and living quietly is the best way to avoid scandal. Catherine misses her fellow spinsters, and doesn’t want to go along. They argue about it for some time, then end up going anyway.

When they get to the country, Catherine likes it okay and doesn’t really want to leave. She is worried that when they go back to London, Quint will continue pursuing a political career, and she knows she won’t be an asset. She knows nothing about entertaining, and is horrified by the idea of being a political hostess. Meanwhile, Quint has been pursuing Catherine, intent on making her his wife in every way. She’s nervous about sex, but eventually he wins her over. Then, just when she decides she can trust him, he yanks her back to London. That bastard.

The rest of the book finishes in tedious fashion. Catherine plans a political dinner, and her evil father and sister plot against her. It all ends happily (just in case you were in doubt).

This book was – to put it bluntly – simply awful. My first clue that it was real F material came around page eighty, when I caught myself staring off into space, trying to decide which character I hated the most. Was it the insipid, temperamental Catherine? Her evil sister? The oblivious, annoyingly-named Quint? Or maybe Josie, the spinster cum pirate? I decided it was probably Josie. I mean really, what grown woman of the aristocracy makes actual plans to go hunt for treasure? Later in the book I decided in favor of the heroine, who seemed determinedly whiny and hard to please. And as I closed the book, I tried half-heartedly to determine a final winner (loser?), but I was just so relieved to be done that I couldn’t summon up enough energy to care.

There really isn’t any one thing that pushes this book firmly into F range; it’s the whole package that tanks it. There are individual scenes that are particularly cringe-worthy, certainly. The aforementioned “heroine running through the streets of London wearing a bed sheet” comes to mind, as does a particularly ridiculous scene when the spinsters all climb through a window. Then there’s the delightful interlude where the heroine feels herself up in a dressmaker’s shop, which is followed up by a voyeuristic idyll in which Quint and Catherine watch the dressmaker’s assistant get it on with her boyfriend.

Admittedly, the concept of the book is not exactly promising to begin with. When I first saw it, I thought, “Ah, Rebecca Hagan Lee’s Freefellows have met their match.” This was not a compliment. I think romance readers sometimes have a love/hate relationship with connected books. We love secondary characters who leave us clamoring for more, more, more. And when series are done well, they can be really satisfying. Unfortunately, coming up with a good concept is easier said than done, and this one has “bad idea” written all over it. Take my advice, and leave the spinsters exactly where they belong: on the shelf.