Despised & Desired: The Marquess' Passionate Wife

Love's Second Chance Series: Tales of Damsels & Knights, Book 1

By: Bree Wolf

Narrated by: Anna Parker-Naples

A tortured hero. A lady with the heart of a lion. And an unbreakable bond.

Elsbeth Munford is set to marry a dashing viscount until an accident destroys her life. Devastated, Ellie resigns herself to a life of spinsterhood, her beauty tainted by ugly scars.

Until one day, when she receives a proposal of marriage... from a man she loved long ago.

Frederick Lancaster, brother to the Marquess of Elmridge, returns home from war. Unable to make his peace with the past, he retreats into the dark until his brother dies unexpectedly and Frederick is thrust into a world of duty. In order to father an heir, he agrees to marry...a woman he does not remember.

Can Frederick see past Ellie's scars? Will Ellie be able to heal his wounded soul?

This tale by a USA Today best-selling author of two broken souls searching for love shows that sometimes the most painful scars are the ones we cannot see.

©2016 Sabrina Wolf (P)2018 Tantor

Yin (or ying) and Yang

In Chinese philosophy Yin is dark and Yang is bright. Surprisingly Yin is female and Yang is male. Their interaction is thought to maintain the harmony of the universe and to influence everything with in it. Ms. Wolf’s book exemplifies this influence with the male and female roles reversed. Fredrick returns from war grief ridden over his failure to save his best friend. His pain is an emotional hell filling him with rage that he doesn’t want to inflict upon others so isolates himself. His family has just experienced the loss of the father but is blissfully happy to have Fredrick back expecting a joyful reunion. Instead Fredrick lives in his angst filled world secretly plotting his return to the war. He and his family’s universe is in disharmony and unhappiness. The darkness intensifies with the next loss of a loved one (no spoiler here) and Fredrick continues his downward spiral.
Elsbeth (apologies for the misspelling) is the light choosing to participate fully in life regardless of her often off putting disfigurement (we learn it isn’t horrific).
Elsbeth in her own way is a philosopher and believes that she is in charge of her own destiny. She has created harmony in her and others lives. She is kindness personified and is able to understand the manifestations of grief influencing others to accept their loss and move through it.
Through the completely surprising and shocking machinations of her and Fredrick’s families Elsbeth finds herself in an arranged marriage to Fredrick. The marriage occurs and is consummated. The consummation act disappoints and leaves Elsbeth confused. Gripped by sadness she rallies and vows to be patient and win Fredrick over. Fredrick on the other hand is pleased that he was able to complete the “act” dispassionately, mutely, and in complete darkness.
Much action continues throughout storylines but the conflict between Fredrick and Elsbeth remains. While both characters are sympathetic their opposite life views become tiresome and the action predictable. I personally had a difficult time with Elsbeth’s subjecting herself to Fredrick’s cold impersonal sex act just for the sake of filling her side of their bargain to produce an heir.
In order to avoid spoilers I will just say the ending moves quickly so be patient.

An engaging story.

I rather enjoy reading about flawed persons having a happy ending. It gives me hope. I get tired of beautiful perfect heroines and devastatingly handsome perfect heroes. This story had flawed persons in spades. Unfortunately I agree with criticism that the narrator's voice was too high, especially for male voices. Frederick sounded too formal and cold for someone in so much pain until the very end when I could hear some emotion in the voice.

A bit drawn out, yet still a good story

This book pretty much held my interest throughout, except for a bit of drawn out angst with both the heroine and the hero. A question concerning the death of the hero’s father went basically unanswered; I wonder if that will be covered in a subsequent book in the series? I definitely plan to read the next one.

Fantastic!

A bit on the dark side but a great romantic love story. I think you will enjoy this.

Great story

It's a story that gives hope. The characters were interesting and had a twist at the end. I Enjoyed it.