title: A Most Unsuitable Groom (The Beckets of Romney Marsh)
author:  Kasey Michaels 
description: With this tedious return to Romney Marsh (after <i>Beware of a Virtuous Woman</i>, etc.), Michaels hits her series' first speed bump, eschewing the light comedy for which she's known in favor of high drama and intrigue. The result is a contrived romance with more bluster than action. The story kicks off during the war of 1812, in which Spencer Becket is battling American troops. A blow to the head sends him back to his family's island enclave with no memory of how he survived. However, a pregnant Mariah Rutledge soon arrives to fill in those gaps and deliver Spencer's son, a child he can't recall conceiving. The Beckets welcome Mariah into the fold, but keep her in the dark about their privateering past. Sensing they're holding back, Mariah spies on them and forces herself (twice) onto a ship bound for danger. That a new mother would desert her baby just to prove herself to the in-laws is absurd, anachronistic and unfortunately all too typical of this story, an awkward marriage between gaiety and gravity. It's easy to get the sense that, in trying to do too much, Michaels just skims the surface of character and plot. <i>(Apr.)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  “PLEASE, MISS MAITLAND, DO ME THE HONOR OF MAKING ME THE HAPPIEST MAN ON EARTH
  BY CONSENTING TO BECOME MY BRIDE.”
  
  As a proposal of marriage it lacked nothing in composition, although condemned
  men must have sounded more cheerfully animated speaking their final words
  before mounting the scaffold.
  
  Jennie looked searchingly into Kit’s blue eyes, searching in vain for some
  carefully concealed humorous glint that would assure her he had spoken in
  jest. She found none. He was serious, she concluded at last, deadly serious.
  Earls may not steal kisses from baronets’ daughters, even if they thought they
  were merely indulging in a bit of a lark with some little nobody of no
  consequence. Violators, this unwritten law decreed, will forfeit either their
  honor or their freedom.
  
  Lord Bourne had made his choice. He would marry her to satisfy the
  conventions. And to save her good name.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Kasey Michaels is the New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of more