The Forgotten Marquess by Jane Charles

Tracy’s rating: 3 of 5 stars

Series: The Other Trents, #1

Release Date: October 8, 2019

WARNING: Parts of this review might be spoilerish…

Elaina Trent, the Marchioness of Hopkins and her husband Tristian have been married for three years. Theirs was a love match and they are now the parents two children, life seems perfect. But today, Elaina and Tristian are having a fight, she wants to go to France to see her dying grandmother, Tristian refuses to even consider a trip because of the war, but Elaina refuses to listen and when Tristian leaves on estate business, she takes the children and leaves. When Tristian returns to find them gone, he is angry, but when his children are returned without Elaina, who was lost at sea, he is heartbroken.

Three years later, Tristian has been trapped into marriage and is forced to have Elaina declared dead. But Elaina is not dead, she is on the island of Alderney suffering from amnesia and on the brink of becoming betrothed herself – that is until Tristian’s brother Harrison finds her and returns her to England.

Tristian is overjoyed at her return and quickly has his marriage cancelled and Elaina’s life restored, while he is doing that Elaina is sent to stay with her brothers – small bits of her memory return and her brother Xavier, a doctor refuses to let anyone tell her anything, insisting that she has to remember in her own time. The problem is Elaina doesn’t remember Tristian or their children at all and even after reading her journals from her life before she married, no memories return, she does however begin to come to know Tristian and thinks she is falling in love with him all over again.
After weeks of staying at her brother’s house, Tristian insists that they return to their home, but for some reason, Elaina is terrified at the prospect. Tristian hopes going home will unleash the memories she can’t seem to grasp, but at the same time, he worries that seeing their children could destroy her.

This was a good story, but honestly there were just things that didn’t work – first and foremost, there was a man on the ship that saved her, he heard someone shout her name and his memory was intact – so he obviously knew where the ship was headed – why didn’t anyone try to find her family? Why didn’t Tristian hire investigators? Second, Tristian’s “secret” marriage, it was far-fetched and unbelievable – he was able to have her declared his wife who has been “missing” for three years declared dead in less than a week without any sort of investigation? And then when it turns out his dead wife is not dead – the marriage is just dissolved? Personally, I saw absolutely no point for the marriage to have taken place – betrothed, fine, but the marriage was unnecessary and pushed the limits of believability for no reason, at least nothing that furthered this story. I also found myself getting annoyed with Elaina, she would read something in her journals and then get angry at Tristian about it, it seemed incredibly immature. I thought the writing was good and the story did flow nicely and I liked watching them rediscover each other, but I don’t think I would read it again.

*I am voluntarily leaving a review for an eARC that was provided to me.*