Scandalous Heiress by Cerise DeLand

My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

Series: Those Notorious Americans #4
Publication Date: 2/4/19
Number of Pages: 284

I really enjoyed this story. It was well written and the characters were interesting and relatable. I loved Ada. She was bright, mature, steady and loyal and she comes from a large loving family. I had more of a love/hate relationship with Victor. I really loved him and felt his pain, but he annoyed me at the same time. His father gave him money (£10,000 per year) and property but he was still constantly worried about money – and it also bugged me that his first thought was to run away when scandal/trouble came rather than stay and fight. He’s panicked, worried about money, worried about supporting Ada, and the whole time Ada is just calmly going along and fixing everything.

Ada Hanniford is an American heiress living in England with her family. Her father is rich as Croesus – he just has that golden touch when it comes to business. She reads the newspapers, is interested in politics, designs garden layouts and is totally unimpressed with all those titled gentlemen who are interested in her £50,000 dowry. Ada doesn’t hate men and doesn’t really have anything against marriage, she’s just never seen a man she wanted to spend any time with. Well, at least she hadn’t until she accompanied her best friend Ezzie to a house party at the home of the man they expect to propose to Ezzie.

Lord Victor Arthur Sunderland Cole is the second son of the Duke of Brentwood. He adores his parents but is sad that his father is very ill. His father’s illness is the main reason he and his two daughters have returned from Shanghai where his business is headquartered. Victor’s first marriage was a huge, scandalous disaster and he’s certainly not interested in ever marrying again. His first wife created such a scandal that Victor had to take her and the girls and move to Shanghai to let it die down. When he first arrives at his parents home he hears the most enticing, tinkling laughter outside the window. Hmmm, it must be the young woman to whom his brother, Richard, is planning to propose.

Over the next few weeks, Victor and Ada see each other more and more and become closer and closer to each other. Victor still isn’t sure he wants to marry again, but he is certainly drawn to Ada. Then, a terrifying event occurs and they are forced into marriage. Can they make it work? Each admits to loving the other, but – is love enough? Maybe not, because at one point Victor says, “I will go and you will stay. Because love is not enough to change the world.”

As I mentioned above, Victor’s propensity to run away bothers me. He hurts Ada unbelievably because he, evidently, can’t stand the heat. In just a very short period of time he went from, “From this day forward, he wished to never let her go.” to “Go to bed. Stay there. Do not come here because I cannot have you. Not tonight. Not… perhaps ever.” to “I must return to Shanghai. There is no future for me here.” At that point, there was no ‘we’, it was all about ‘I’ and ‘me’.

Luckily for Victor, Ada is a sharp cookie and knew what to do to fix everything and it didn’t require running away. However, what I have to wonder is – where were all of those friends and family while Victor and Ada were on their honeymoon? Ada’s father had vowed revenge, but then evidently did nothing on his own. Friends were the same story. They could have prevented the whole thing had they REALLY been friends and family.

I really hate it when the villain gets totally away with whatever crime they have committed and this villain was a nasty piece of work. Why couldn’t he, in a drunken, drugged-up stupor fall off his horse and break his neck? It would have been so very good for so many people.

Anyway, it is an excellent read and I really enjoyed it – even if Victor annoyed me on occasion. It has to be a sign of a well-written book when the characters are so believable that you want to grab one of them by the shoulders and shake them!

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