Madeleine's Marriage EG is back with another campy romance between a lady who likes to back out of engagements at the last minute and a charming, dilettante playboy who is totally bowled over by the h's charms.
The story starts with the h literally running into the H and knocking him down when she goes over to his Steamboat Gothic home, it is the matched set to her's next door, to complain about the wild party he is throwing.
She lives with heryear old great aunt and the noise is really distressing, There are some attempts at karate moves, cause the h is described as being very large but not overweight and quite an athlete, A missed punch towards the H leads to roofie kisses and the h is a bit indignant at the H's presumption, but more interested in finding the owner of the house and shutting down the party.
The h finds a man she thinks is the owner and he gets rather handsy, She tosses him into the stereo, stopping the overloud music, and shouts that the police are raiding, By the time the room clears, the only ones left are the H and h and she finds out Mr, Great Kisser is also the house's owner, More words are exchanged and the H's parrot makes himself known, The h winds up pouring a beer over the H's head to escape his clutches and takes off for home,
The H manages to inveigle himself into the h's life by becoming fast friends with her great aunt, whose only goal is to see the h married off.
The h is a real estate salesperson and decides that since the H disturbs her greatly and there is much bickering, plus her cat keeps trying to eat his parrot, the h will sell the H a huge isolated mansion on a little island close by.
This way she will get rid of his disturbing, but strangely stimulating presence and get a big fat commission, Her boss, who is semi in love with her and keeps proposing, wants to suspend her from work for the rest of the year and the h needs to make a large enough amount to support her and her aunt until she can sell houses again.
Thus starts the h's campaign to get the H to buy the remote island supposedly haunted property, She calls all the local children over to play various games and things to disturb the H.
He claims to be a writer, and one day when her cat chases his parrot through the H's house, she finds out he is writing a bodice ripping romance novel.
The H is still following her around various places and by conniving with her aunt, he manages to strand both himself and the h on the island that has the house she wants to sell him.
They wind up spending the night alone when a big storm wrecks the boat they took to the island and they wind up sleeping in the same bed when the h has a nightmare and an oak tree falls through the h's window in the room she is using.
They get rescued the next day, the H had hung the h's lingerie off the houses flagpole to attract attention, and when they return to the mainland they find the h's aunt in hospital.
Thinking that her aunt is seriously ill, the h agrees to a bedside immediate wedding to the H and they have a lovely evening together.
The h has been in love with the H for a while now and the aunt is pleased that the h actually followed through on an agreement to marry someone.
Then the h finds out that her little lectures have inspired the H, He is actually the owner of a large chain of grocery stores and he decides to step up and run the company after the h points out the inferiority of the products in the H's store.
The H never wanted to run the company, so he has spent years fighting with his mother over taking his place in the business after his dad died.
Now he is turning over a new leaf and it is all because of the h, He still plans to finish his romance novel, but the h and he will buy the island house and have twenty kids and he will also run his family's business.
Then the h finds out that the H staged the whole overnight trip except for the storm, he had made sure the house was set up to camp out in buy having it supplied.
He arranged for the supposed 'rescue' the nest morning and the aunt was actually in the hospital for her regular annual physical,
They both faked the h out and the h retaliates by having the H's mother come to stay with them for a month.
It is really an attempt to start an reconciliation between the h and his mother, but the H is taking it as a form of revenge for his sneakiness.
They have a big fight and wind up lurvin it up and decide to stay married, cause they both really love each other, The big HEA is the mutual love declaration and the h's cat deciding to go visit another local cat after the parrot beats him up.
This one was cute, there were the usual wacky EG antics and the usual snarky remarks, The cat and the parrot had some interesting moments and the H reveal was done pretty well, Overall it is a quick read without a lot of drama, so keep it in mind for a nice little HPlandia quickie, This story started out a little slow, but the action picked up and it ended up being a very sweet story,
Madeleine Charbonneau takes on her new neighbor, Joe Fairmont, when is movingin party disturbs her eightyfive yearold greataunt, Tackling him, literally and figuratively, Maddie and Joel seem to continuiously set sparks flying, Trhow in a parrot and a cat that wants the parrot for a snack, and you have some major upheavals involved,
Joel had planned on starting his life in Laconia as an author, Writing was not very easy when your neighbor sets all the kids to making constant racket, but always up for a challenge, Joel finds out more about Maddie thru her
tante Marie, and together hatch a plan to finally get her to the alter.
Maddie may be a little gun shy going down the isle, but she wants to be loved, and finding out she was married under false pretenses, can she get past her issues, to the love Joel provides.
Can sıkıntısı nedeniyle kitaplıktan rastgele alarak kısa sürede okuduğum bir kitap oldu, Eski,yılında, gazete ile alınmış bir kitap, Genel olarak bayat bir hikaye gibi geldi, sonu daha yıkıcı olabilirdi ama hiç olmaması hikayeyi daha da bayat bir hale getirirdi, Orta halli bir Yeşilçam filmi gibi, Yılın ilk bitireceğim kitabının bu olacağını tahmin etmezdim, . . New Englander Madeleine Charbonneau was too big a girl to think of marriage five feet ten inches, to be precise, Her problems consisted mainly of keeping a roof over her head in the quiet town of Laconia, New Hampshire, and caring for her greataunt, Tante Marie.
Then Joel Fairmont moved into the house next door, and Maddie's life changed abruptly,
She was fed up with her goodlooking neighbor, what with his scandalous parties and his foulspeaking parrot! It wasn't like her to threaten a stranger with physical violence but then, most strangers didn't kiss her like that! Whatever was she to do about that arrogant, arrant man Concerned for her fragile old housemate, she plotted to get rid of Joel.
Her scheming wasn't supposed to lead to her spending a night on a lonely islandtrapped with tempting Joel! Nor was her reputation supposed to wind up as grist for the town's gossip mill! Joel's honorable proposal of marriage saved the day.
But Madeleine had the unnerving suspicion that her rescuer was railroading her, I honestly forgot most of what happens, I had to read the books summary to remember what it was about lol, I guess its not shocking that it was astar read, I only know that I didnt hate it, wonderful one !! very very funny n hilarious ! joel fairmont the conniving swine n madeleine charbonneau the dramatizing queen lol !! amazing read: dunt miss it Nice but not sure how they fell in love with each other.
Are you looking to switch up your HPs This may be the one for you written by one of the few husband/wife teams in HP land.
As other reviewers have stated this is full of snappy banter back and forths between the H and h, The romance is cloaked under all the witty repertoire, However, there is no mistaken that these two fell for each other at first sight, It is going to take aboutpages for them to come to terms with that and arrive at “Madeleines Marriage”,
Madeleine Charbonneau
”,year old virgin raised since the age ofby her great aunt MarieShe is shaped by being raised by a woman who vividly remembers WW.
She is a combination of little part small town innocent girl and feisty, independent woman, She tends to fall in and out of love quickly, with several aborted engagements behind her, One night, the neighbor next door is throwing a large party complete with heavy metal music, Her Karen instincts kick in and she decides it is time to introduce herself to the new neighbor!
Joel Fairmontof the New England Fairmont's,” eschews the family business to embrace a hedonistic existence and is now intent on writing his first novelromance at that! This party is his last hurrah before he
buckles down to write his best seller!
While the party is raging oncouples making out, an artist using a naked woman as his canvass etc.
. he sits on the verandah smoking a cigarette, Up walks a visibly angry, yet beautiful woman, He doesnt introduce himself and they end up having some word play, There is a little bit of a tussleour h knows karate and the H ends up with the h in his arms, His way of subduing a woman in a fight has more to do with lip locking not karate chopping, Our h sees what is coming, tries to avoid it, but ends up succumbing to it, When they break apart, both are struggling to breathe, and we, the reader can see that their destiny is set,
Anyhoo, the h goes in gets in another scuffle with a party goer and breaks up the party with the threat of a police raid.
It isnt until everyone leaves that the h realizes her verandah kisser is none other than the owner of the house, From this moment on it is a battle of wills between the two characters, The H is obviously pursuing the h but she is so bent on not falling for him that she doesnt have time to notice.
Meanwhile the H befriends the aunt who is “team Fairmont” all the way, Plus she would like to see her beloved niece married and settled to someone who can give as good as he gets,
Here are some other tidbits woven throughout the story:
It takes place in New Hampshire and the wonder that is Lake Winnipesaukee.
Which is funny, because a niece of mine did a report this year on Lake Winnipesaukee,
There is an om wannabe who isinches shorter,years older, balding with a round belly, It is her boss, and she pays him no mind despite his requests for marriage, Our H actually has moments of jealousy over the guy, but he is a bit player and takes up very few lines in the book.
This is pretty much all of the hs pov, but what is different is how it is done, Usually, we see the thoughts of the h as the story progresses, and that is the case with this, but she talks back to her thoughts.
She will openly scold her thoughts, Basically, her truth conscious likes to answer her back,
The H inherited Bluebeard, ayear old parrot with some colorful vocabulary, One of his favorite lines is: “look at the lovely knockers!”
The h has a white Tom cat Mehitabel, Mehitabel is intent on acquiring Bluebeard as a delicious playmate, but the parrot can take care of itself to Mehitabels chagrin, The name was interesting to me, so I looked it up, There was a popular newspaper columnist/humoristDon Marquis etc, . in the early part of thes who was well known for his funny poetry on Archycockroach and Mehitabel the cat, Our authors were born in the first quarter of theth century, so they may have been familiar with his writings, He was well known at the time, You can find some of his work on Open library,
This was taken from Archygramfound in book Archyology
“ i heard a man
Wondering recently why
The creator made
Such useless things
As cockroaches and
Mosquitoes
Cockroaches and mosquitoes
Have often wondered
The same thing
About men “
The Hs estranged mother shows up in the later part of the book.
She is impressed with the transformation of her son, and encourages the h to call her “mother”, I think mother and son will be reconciling soon as he has made a transformation from aimless playboy,
The love scenes in this bookwrittenwere a combination of sweet, funny and sexy, I was actually surprised at the incidences in the book, Going into this I was thinking this was going to be Betty Neels level romance, but it clearly was not based on the first chapter alone.
Our heroine is caught more than once without her clothing in front of the H, When they are stranded on an island, the h and H have to make do with curtains as makeshift togas, The H happens upon the h dancing with her curtain as she shakes the years of dust out of it, He was entranced. This ended up in a night of naked sleeping, all platonic. Our H kept things in check while holding the h through the night, After their marriagehence the name of the book their honeymoon night all kinds of sweet, funny, and sexy,
“A long moment of comfort, with his weight balanced on her broad hips, and the quiet contact before he rolled to one side, pulled her up into the circle of his arms, and kissed the forehead that nestled against his shoulder.
'Well!' he said. 'A twentysevenyearold virgin!' And a selfsatisfied sigh of contentment followed,
'Did Idid I do all right' she asked hesitantly, squirming around to look up at him,
'Lady,' he laughed, 'if that's what you learned from television I'm going to have to watch that channel!',
This is not how our story ends, There is a “black” moment which you need to discover on your own, but seriously in this story there really isnt a true black moment.
It doesnt have that type of angst in it, And, seriously, that is ok!
They come together again before our story ends with one last glimpse of our two pets,
“Down on the porch in the moonlight Bluebeard the parrot squawked, 'Anchors aweigh, Pretty baby!' And Mehitabel, tired of playing games with stupid birds, started up McGrath Street looking for the Persian, ”
This is probably worthy ofstars, I was hoping for a little more of the enemies part in the story, and although these two have many exchanges, it wasnt quite the level angst I was originally anticipating.
I love the look of the h on the cover of the book, Overall, I found the book very satisfying and it was nice to shake up my usual cruel hero, secret baby, amnesia, witchy ows etc.