Book Review: Because You're Mine

There were a number of things I didn't really like about this book, the least of which was the way the title always made me sing to myself, "I walk the line." Lisa Kleypas is one of my favorite romance authors, but this was an older book of hers, and it fell victim to the classic I-hardly-know-you-yet-I-love-you plot.

This book is somewhat of a sequel to Somewhere I'll Find You in that the hero was a fairly prominent character in that book. I didn't realize it until after I bought the book to be honest, and maybe that would have changed my mind about my purchase considering that I wasn't too crazy about that book. The hero is a famous London actor (in the 1830's) and the heroine is the daughter of an aristocrat who is facing an arranged marriage with an old, gross man. So she decides that the only way to avoid the marriage (a fate worse than social ruin, apparently) is to seek out the hero and give him her virtue so that no respectable man would want her. Unfortunately for her, he turns her down. But she is determined! And she takes a job in his theatre company so that she can be close to him.

Of course, she's hiding her true identity from him the entire time. And of course, he is desperately in lust with her. And of course, he's super-duper pissed that she lied to him about who she was. The last part I found completely implausible. Why did it matter that she was the daughter of an aristrocrat? She was honest about wanting to get him into bed! Why should he care about her motives? After all, she picked him because she thought he was attractive! So to me that whole bit just seemed contrived, a convenient way to drive something between the hero and heroine.

Other stuff happens, too, but I can't seem to remember what it was. So I guess it wasn't that memorable.

Lindsey's Grade: C+