When A Stranger Loves Me by Julianne MacLean
First line: ”The thunderous boom from a cannon shook the ground beneath his nude body and mumbled through the foggy haze in his head.”
This story has an interesting prologue: the hero is washed ashore with no recollection of how he came to be where he’d landed (in a cave), what he had been doing, or who he is.
Chapter one introduces a heroine who has been exiled due to a scandal some seven years prior. She appears perfectly content with her situation until he arrives on the scene. Her brother has been married for ten years, but a child has not yet been conceived in all this time. So their mother starts demanding the daughter to marry. Not only a man twice her age, but a cousin, as well, out of duty to keep the bloodline direct from their deceased father.
Deciding to use the hero as a stud service, without his knowledge to get pregnant, does not sit too well with the hero. Doubly so, because if/when she conceives she conspires to give a child to her brother and sister-in-law.
I don’t believe I’ve read a story where the daughter was expected to marry because an heir had not yet been provided. We later find that the mother had married for a title, was very unhappy, and pushed the same on her daughter, which makes more sense.
I found the motives for the hero believable in a sense, because according to his family who finally locate him, he’d always been the responsible one, always trying to do right by the family. With his anger having been suppressed for most of his life, it starts coming through and he is frustrated because he doesn’t understand why.
This kept my interest, though I regret to say, the emotion throughout the book was weak.
For: Readers who want an interesting psychological twist with internal conflict. - Kathy Wheeler