by Annabelle Anders
Series: Devilish Debutantes #1
Published on July 17, 2017 by Blue Tulip Publishing
Format: eBook
Pages: 329
Genres: Adult, Historical Romance, Romance
To keep the money, he has to keep her as well…
Cecily Nottingham has made a huge mistake.
The marriage bed was still warm when the earl she thought she loved crawled out of it and announced that he loved someone else.
Loves. Someone else.
All he saw in Cecily was her dowry.
But he’s in for the shock of his life, because in order to keep the money, he has to keep her.
With nothing to lose, Cecily sets out to seduce her husband’s cousin, Stephen Nottingham, in an attempt to goad the earl into divorcing her. Little does she realize that Stephen would turn out to be everything her husband was not: Honorable, loyal, trustworthy…Handsome as sin.
Stephen only returned to England for one reason. Save his cousin’s estate from financial ruin. Instead, he finds himself face to face with his cousins beautiful and scorned wife, he isn’t sure what to do first, strangle his cousin, or kiss his wife. His honor is about to be questioned, right along with his self-control.
Amid snakes, duels and a good catfight, Cecily realizes the game she’s playing has high stakes indeed. There are only a few ways for a marriage to end in Regency England and none of them come without a high price. Is she willing to pay it? Is Stephen? A ‘Happily Ever After’ hangs in the balance, because, yes, love can conquer all, but sometimes it needs a little bit of help.
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If not for some. . . questionable decisions, Hell Hath No Fury might have been a favorite romance of mine for this year. Alas, it was not meant to be.
So. The basics. Cecily marries quick, thinks she’s in love and that her new husband Flavion loves her back but jokes on her, he’s cheating on her with another woman (the guy gets around). Enter his dashing cousin Stephen, his complete opposite, and just a really bad plan to get the jerk husband to file for divorce.
Problem #1 - Cecily thinks it’s a good idea to pretend to have an affair with Stephen to hurt Flavion’s pride and get him to divorce her so she’s free. Like, alright, this would have been fine if it hadn’t been his cousin. She’s pissed at Flavion for cheating on her but now she wants to pretend to do the same thing (but we all know it won’t be pretend for long). I love a good fake relationship and it’s one of my favorite tropes in romances, but not how this was done.
Problem #2 - Cecily and Stephen have an affair but, oh no, it’s not like a drawn out even to get to that point. This happens within days of meeting each other and coming up with this crazy scheme. It came off as rushed and I also wasn’t a big fan of getting back at Flavion by doing the exact same thing that he did. I’d have rather seen Cecily overcome her situation in some other manner.
And yet, I still enjoyed Hell Hath No Fury. Cecily and Stephen actually have a really great relationship going, situation aside. The way it’s written makes it seem like a lot more time has passed as they get to now each other, rather than days. The moments I forgot about the adultery were the best because I could enjoy this book for the love story (which was also thankfully a good portion of the book).
The writing was solid too and I finished reading in one sitting. Anders kept the story moving at a good pace with enough tension from the situation to keep things interesting while also providing page time for the characters to grow as individuals and as a couple. And I enjoyed the book enough to want to read the rest of the series, so that’s something, I suppose.
Hell Hath No Fury was decent and I think if you don’t mind the whole fight fire with fire bit, you’ll really enjoy it. By the end, it bothered me more than I expected but the romance made up for enough that I would still recommend this book!
About Austine
I'm a 20-something research proposal developer with a background in the life sciences and education. Reviewer of books since 2011, amateur photographer by day, and aspiring author by night. I believe animals (and books) are better than people.
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