When people think of the American Revolution, I doubt many people immediately think of romance novels. And if they do, I doubt they think of them from a British perspective. But The Girl with the Make-Believe Husband takes the two uncommon ideas and puts them together. While I wish I could say this book was fantastic, this is the first Julia Quinn book I debated DNF'ing. And honestly, I wish I had.
The book description created an interesting premise. Cecilia, in an act of desperation, says she is the wife of Edward Rokesby through a proxy marriage. She had gotten a letter that her brother Thomas was injured, and arrived in New York to find he was missing, and nobody was interested in helping her until she was connected to the son of an Earl. Edward, however, was unconscious during her declaration and woke up with no memory of the past few months, leading him to believe he and Cecilia were, in fact, married.
Now, whenever I write a book review, I try my best to keep spoilers out of it. However, to properly talk about how much I disliked this book, I do need to talk about some spoilers - so if you're spoiler adverse, turn away now.
One of the things I need in a book is a dynamic setting. It's part of the reason I detest books that take place on boats; there are only so many places people can go on a ship, and it gets repetitive quickly. However, this story showed me something I hate more than books on boats: books that take place in a room at an inn. Now, I'm not saying this happened in a romantic way, but instead in a way where nothing happened. Edward was recovering from a concussion and amnesia, leaving him bedbound for the first half of the book, while Cecilia took care of him. And once he started feeling better, they still found excuses not to leave. I am willing to bet about 75% of this book took place in this room, with them finding not-sexy excuses not to leave.
The other main problem I had with the book was Cecilia's characterization. She had no character development over the course of the book, and any chance at character development she had she found ways to get out of. For example. she and Edward were invited to a ball, a trope I love within historical romance, Cecilia decides to eat a strawberry to get out of it. Which sounds innocent, except for the fact she is highly allergic to them - causing them to stay in the room and do nothing for another few days. Any situation where they may have had pressure on their fake marriage was avoided, to the point I was desperate for something to happen.
When I looked at other reviews of this book, they said it was a shame the ending was attached to this book, and I agree with that. However, I mistakenly assumed this meant the last third or so of the book, and the boring waste of time led to a fantastic payoff. That's not true at all. Instead, the last chapter and the epilogue seemed to me like Julia Quinn remembered how to write her signature style, while leaving us to suffer through the rest of the book. So if you're reading the prequels, I highly recommend skipping this one. All you need to know is that Edward and Cecilia end up together; everything else isn't worth the read.