I received this book for free from Netgalley. This did not influence my review.

I read this book a while ago, but waited to post this review until closer to the publication date.

I’ve read a few of Jo Beverley’s Regency Romances and enjoyed them, so I was startled to see this latest novel, Merely a Marriage, described as her last. I googled her and was sorry to learn that she died in May 2016. 

Jo Beverley’s historical romances have always stood out for me because she doesn’t just set them in the Regency period for the manners of the time. (The manners are important, of course; all the rules of courting and social behavior make these books fun escapism.) She also truly seems to know the time period and inserts more historical context into the storylines than is typical. The history isn’t the focus. It’s never heavy-handed and the books are clearly genre romance. But the historical tidbits are an added bonus.

Merely a Marriage takes place immediately following the death of Princess Charlotte in childbirth. England is plunged into mourning. Social events are muted. Dresses must be in mourning colors. And the twenty-five-year-old Lady Ariana Boxstall is in a panic. Her father is two years dead and her brother, a couple of years younger than she, has no intention of marrying and filling the nursery with potential heirs. This could be a problem if her brother, Norris, should suffer an untimely death. Their uncle would inherit, and he’s a gambler and a nasty drunkard.

Norris is too young and healthy to be concerned, which irritates Ariana. So, he challenges her: if she’s wed by the end of the year, he’ll marry right after her. Since she retired from society after a disastrous coming out at seventeen, he feels safe. But Ariana is not one to shy from a challenge.

Ariana is beautiful, willful, and intelligent. However, she has a fatal flaw. She’s much too tall. Since she would never settle for a man shorter than herself, her options are limited in the countryside. She has to go back to London to find a wider field of choices. Her mother is happy to take her, and they will stay with an elderly relative who knows all the right people. Unfortunately, she knows some of the wrong people too: her nephew, the Earl of Kynaston, is one of the young men whose mockery made Ariana’s debut so painful. She might have endured it better if she wasn’t so smitten with him at the time. She’s older and wiser now, but still not prepared to share a roof with him. He’s as gorgeous (and tall) as ever, but he’s also still nasty, and he drinks to excess.

Of course, first (and second) impressions can be wrong.

As Lady Ariana shuffles through the men who survive the first weed-out round (tallness), she discovers that she’s even pickier than she thought. Height is the main thing, but not everything. Thrown together frequently with Kynaston, she finds he has more and more attributes on her checklist. Still, she resents him so much and is so certain he’s not interested in her, that she invents sins to assign to him, fabricating a tale of dissipation, rakish behavior, impoverishment, neglect of his estates and family, all to talk herself out of the attraction she still feels.

Kynaston has his own reasons for keeping Ariana at arm’s length despite his attraction to her. The reader will be convinced that he’s actually a noble character long before Ariana admits it. Ariana’s willful blindness to all the clues gets a bit irritating after awhile. She prefers to invent reasons for his behavior and stick to her own version of his life despite all evidence to the contrary. However, once she is told Kynaston’s history, she does an abrupt about face. Now she sees clearly that he is the perfect man—the only man—for her.

Ariana’s matter-of-fact approach to life makes her an interesting protagonist. And Kynaston is fine as the alpha male of her dreams. But her single-minded pursuit of him, including various plans to compromise herself so that he will have no choice but to marry her, get a bit unnerving. She tackles problems with an end-justifies-the-means attitude where the end is always to get what she wants. Since she’s certain that she knows what’s right for everyone, she sees no problem with forcing the issues. And, while she is naturally right that she and Kynaston are meant for each other (it’s a romance, after all), I found her character rather off-putting. Nevertheless, she is surrounded by charming supporting characters and I had fun reading this.

I wanted to strangle Ariana right from the start. She is selfish, bossy, and always thinks she is right. Kynaston is grumpy, drinks a lot, and stand offish. I didn’t understand why there could be an attraction to each other. I had to force myself to read the book and could only make it to 75%. This is my least favorite of Jo Beverley’s books and I have read many.

I love Jo Beverley's books, and this one did not disappoint. I actually locked myself in my room so my family wouldn't disturb me while I was reading. Her characters are so real and you feel like you live their stories. While this was not my favorite, Ms. Beverley was a superb author, and Merely a Marriage was a phenomenal read that I highly recommend.

Merely a Marriage 
By  Jo Beverley 
Berkley
June 2017

Lady Ariana Boxstall challenges her brother Norris to settle down and marry for the sake of preserving the family estate. After all, how tough can it be for a catch like Norris to find a suitable young lady during London Season? Ariana hadn’t anticipated Norris’s counter offer—that she marry first, and he’d follow her to the altar within a month. Suddenly choosing a marriageable partner doesn’t seem so simple, particularly for a too-tall, gangly Amazon like Ariana. But she’s not about to back down from Norris’ challenge, and reluctantly travels with her mother to London, stopping for a few days to visit their cousin, the Dowager Countess of Cawle.

Titus Delacorte, Earl of Kynaston, is an enigma. He’s a handsome, brooding and cynical sot, who also appears to be homeless. Ariana encounters him asleep in the library of his aunt, Lady Cawle’s, home, where he emerges from a drunken haze long enough to acknowledge Ariana’s presence. This isn’t their first meeting. She wonders if he remembers her from that awful London Season eight years before. Does he remember that they’d danced, or that he’d broken her heart?

Beverley’s final romance is a tale of transformation and new beginnings, blended with warmth and a touch of wry humor. What a delight to read. That is so Beverley. 

-- Sandra Van Winkle, Staff Reviewer for ReadertoReader.com

Jo Beverley was a prolific author of romance novels until she died in 2016. I believe this is her last book. Unfortunately, it is not very good. It is dull and repetitive, with a plot that is all over the place.
 
It starts out well. Ariana, a young woman who is past the normal marrying age, is worried her younger brother, an earl, will die without an heir and they’ll lose the family home. She challenges him to marry and he says he’ll find a wife if she first finds a husband. She agrees to this bargain even though it means she’ll have to move out of that family home. She sets out to make a match come what may.
 
Her own coming out years before did not go well because she is six feet tall and has big feet. (Did women really grow that tall in the late 1700s?) She was mortified to be called an Amazon and had a humiliating experience with a particular man she was attracted to. She and her mother go to stay with a family friend, who makes out a list of tall single men who might suit her. At the bottom of the list is that man from eight years earlier. Although she furiously crosses him off the list, he is the friend’s nephew, so of course there are many opportunities to spend time with him as he is currently living with his aunt.
 
The big secret is why he is living with his aunt, drinking his life away, when he ought to have estates of his own to look after and work to be doing. Ariana thinks he is just a rake on the road to ruin, but of course there is a secret, although everyone already seems to know it except Ariana. One of the big problems with this book is that it takes forever the secret to be revealed. If I’d been reading a print copy of the book, I would have flipped forward to see what it was, but I was too lazy and indifferent I guess to do it in an ebook. The plot loses focus and by the last chapters I was just ready for it to end.
 
Recommended for die-hard Jo Beverley fans only.

I read an advance reader copy of Merely a Marriage from Netgalley.

Thought the premise of this book promising, but the author lost The opportunity. Pretty average subject matter that is found in many other books I've read. Most readers would not even finish the book as many times the author waylaid this reader with irrelevant and boring details. Not very imaginative.

Lady Ariana Boxstall challenges her brother Norris to settle down and marry for the sake of preserving the family estate. After all, how tough can it be for a catch like Norris to find a suitable young lady during London Season?  Ariana hadn’t anticipated Norris’s counter offer—that she marry first, and he’d follow her to the altar within a month. Suddenly choosing a marriageable partner doesn’t seem so simple, particularly for a too-tall, gangly Amazon like Ariana.  But she’s not about to back down from Norris’ challenge, and reluctantly travels with her mother to London, stopping for a few days to visit their cousin, the Dowager Countess of Cawle. 
Titus Delacorte, Earl of Kynaston, is an enigma.  He’s a handsome, brooding and cynical sot, who also appears to be homeless. Ariana encounters him asleep in the library of his aunt, Lady Cawle’s, home, where he emerges from a drunken haze long enough to acknowledge Ariana’s presence. This isn’t their first meeting. She wonders if he remembers her from that awful London Season eight years before.  Does he remember that they’d danced, or that he’d broken her heart?
Beverley’s final romance is a tale of transformation and new beginnings, blended with warmth and a touch of wry humor.  What a delight to read. That is so Beverley.

Loved the characters and the plot .  It was a slow burn all the way to the conflagration at the end.  Just a wonderful story and so well done .

When Princess Charlotte dies in childbirth, it sends British society into a tailspin of mourning and reminds Lady Ariana Boxstall just how fragile life can be. Although she has been firmly "on the shelf" since a disastrous coming out season when she was only 17, she is desperate to have her younger brother marry and start a family, ensuring their family name and fortune will never fall into the hands of their drunkard uncle. The siblings make a grudging bargain: Norris will marry if Ariana will. To Town they go, in search of spouses they can each both tolerate and persuade quickly into matrimony. To Ariana's dismay, this means she suddenly finds herself frequently in company with the same man who broke her heart 8 years ago. However, he isn't the same man he once was, any more than she is the same girl she was back then, and maybe, just maybe, hearts can be healed. 

Took me a little while to get into this story, but I grew to like the characters and wanted to know what would happen to them and what had happened in the past. Might have gone with 4 stars, but I have some issues with the plausibility and internal (in)consistency of the ending, which I can't fully discuss without spoilers. Still, it was a fun read, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

For readers' advisors: character doorway is primary, setting (right after the death of Princess Charlotte) secondary. A bit of mild swearing, some kisses, and one not-at-all-descriptive sex scene.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for letting me read an advance copy of the ebook in exchange for my honest review.

2.75 stars so I'll round it up to three.
Not a bad romance though it didn't feel as fully fleshed out as most novels tend to be. There seemed to be a rushed quality towards the end and some lack of character development and plot development. I liked the characters enough but I was never really invested in any of them all that much and just kind of went along with everything. I wish some of the side characters would've had more page-time, or at least that there'd been time for more of the side plots that seemed to be planted and then only remarked about toward the end (like the Russian guy who apparently liked her but Ariana had no idea? I would've liked a small subplot with that and how it made Kynaston jealous or something but eh, instead I only got Kynaston mentioning that lots of dudes liked her but she never realised it because she was all hung up on being tall and awkward years ago back when she was 17). Even the motivations of the main characters just seemed a bit too dramatic for the story we got on the page; I just couldn't totally relate (okay, I could relate to Kynaston's motivation once it was more fully revealed but that took a hella long time so that once I did find out why, I just kinda rolled my eyes and moved on).
It was pleasant enough but not the fun, engaging romances I'm used to reading. Just a bit tepid and slow moving at times before rushing ahead towards the finish, which kinda left me feeling like the story wasn't really complete. All in all it was a nice enough story but not one that ever swept me away. 

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Let’s start with what I did like. The cover is beautiful and a bit saucy. Alrighty, now we move on to what did not work for me. The main character, Ariana Boxstall. At the start of this story I was just getting to know her and she was okay. I liked that she was looking out for her family and stood up for what she felt was right. I even found it humorous that she was going to find a husband in order to ensure her family’s security.

Where the story started to go wrong for me was the introduction of the male protagonist, Earl of Kynaston. He gave her a terrible hurt about eight years prior and honestly it was very minor. It impacted her so greatly only because this character has low self-esteem. She is tall and I think that how she was treated in regards to that could have been realistic but being in her head was just tedious. She relived the slight many times over and what really got me was that she was eavesdropping so it was not as if she understood why it was said. Throughout the entire story, she turned over every physical detail about herself that she was self-conscious of. Whenever any dialogue occurred she looked for the slights in it. OMG!

I could have lived with her character the way she was if she had confronted the Earl and found out the truth. Then be mad, then take slight over everything, then make him pay. There were parts where the character showed strength but being in her head with her simpering ruined this for me. If I had spent most of my time in the head of the Earl, I think I could have enjoyed it more.

Next up is the romance. It was not there for me. I did not feel that his attraction to her was truly articulated. There was nothing he expressed that made my heart go pitter-patter. His reasoning for being standoffish was understandable but not really convincing to me. Her infatuation with him was completely believable but almost annoying. I am all for heroine’s going for their man but I felt that in the end she was very underhanded and pushy. I would have liked it better if she had truly assaulted his senses to the point that he just broke and had to have her. Yes, a passionate embrace where he was senseless would have been nice. She just manipulated the situation and he caved to her will. Weak man, just weak.

So, I did not love the main characters but what about the story itself? It was monotonous to me. With that said I was able to finish this book. Yes, the story was boring but it did keep me going because I wanted to see how it finished out. There is something to be said there. It was a clean read and that is always nice. I cannot say that I recommend this book but I can state that what does not work for me may work for you.

*Thank you to NetGalley & Berkley Publishing Group for this eARC of Merely a Marriage*

Author Jo Beverly, who passed away in May 2016 according to her biography at Amazon.com and wikipedia.org, has one last romance to offer her readers, Merely a Marriage released in January 2017.  Unfortunately, this book does not have the exuberance or passion that her previous releases had and leaves her readers passing on this offer.

The heroine, Lady Ariana Boxstall nags her brother Norris to marry.  In return, he promises to marry if she does.  The premise has promise of making the story appealing but the language and attitude of the characters is too mundane to keep the read interesting.  After a while, it no longer matters to the reader if Norris or Ariana find the partner who will make them happy.  

The story is meant to be set in Regency England but the style of the writing does not show it.  The dialogue and verses have a 21st century vernacular with characters that lack qualities the reader could revere, especially heroic qualities that were indicative of early 19th century personalities.  Nagging each other to marry does not make for appealing traits, nor is going into lengthy discussions about what is fashionable or trendy, which the characters go into over several paragraphs.

Jo Beverly is a prolific author who has a number of tantalizing romances in her catalog of books but Merely a Marriage cannot compare to them.  This is one that readers will likely be disappointed by, and prefer taking up one of her earlier romances.

There were some things  I enjoyed in this book, although  the heroine's  quest was not logical or sympathetic, in fact it was pretty stupid, which made her less than sympathetic. Also the hero's secret was obvious and she seemed dimwitted for not seeing it, and it was aggravating  to endure her repetitive clinging to her erroneous assumptions.

A wonderful story about survival of the single woman in the regency era.

Jo Beverly's newest novel is wonderful.  In addition to the engaging love story, the history lesson about the effect of Princess Charlotte's death in childbirth and its impact on the British people brought home to me the real risks women faced in that era.  I highly recommend it.