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Christmas With His Wallflower Wife is the sixth and final book in Janice Preston’s two trilogies featuring two generations of the Beauchamp family, and it focuses on Alex, younger son of the Duke of Cheriton and his struggle to find out the truth of his mother’s death almost two decades earlier. If you’ve read any of the other books in the series, you’ll know that Alex is a very troubled young man whose relationship with his father is strained and who has deliberately distanced himself from the other members of his family for reasons that have never been fully explained. In presenting Alex’s story, Ms. Preston does an excellent job of slowly unpacking his damaged soul and bringing to light the truth of the trauma he suffered that prompted his withdrawal from his family; Alex is both flawed and compelling, and while there were times I wanted to tell him to get over himself and stop behaving like an idiot, his thoughts and motivations are so very well examined that it was easy to sympathise with him even as I was disagreeing with his methods and seeing the pitfalls marking the horizon.
It’s been several years since Alex visited the family seat, Cheriton Abbey. When he was just seven years old, Alex discovered his mother’s dead body in the summer house by the lake there, and was so severely traumatised that he didn’t speak for a year afterwards. Even though he’s now in his twenties, Alex still avoids the place like the plague and continues to maintain the emotional distance he has painstakingly manufactured between him and the rest of his family. But he’s persuaded to return there for a garden party at which all his family members will be present – a rare occurrence – intending to leave as soon as he can. Another of the guests is his oldest friend, Lady Jane Colebrooke, who is present with her father and dragon of a stepmother, who dislikes Jane and is determined to marry her off to the odious Sir Denzil Pikeford by hook or by crook. It seems that she’s chosen the latter option when Alex hears screams coming from near the lake and immediately dashes to the rescue to discover Jane struggling under the weight of an inebriated Sir Denzil. Jane’s stepmother gleefully insists that Jane must marry Pikeford or be ruined, but Alex won’t hear of it. He’s always liked Jane, they get on well and have many interests in common… he’ll need to get married at some point, so why not marry a woman he already knows and likes? Jane has loved Alex for years and is aghast at the idea of his being forced to marry her, but he manages to overcome her objections and the couple is married without delay.
One of my favourite things about this sort of story is seeing how the relationship develops between two people who had had no thought of being married, watching them adjust to life as part of a couple and learning to compromise and take another’s feelings and wishes into account. Not surprisingly, it’s often the man who has most to learn about compromise and adjustment in these situations, and that’s true here. Ms. Preston writes the early days of Jane and Alex’s marriage very well indeed, showing them developing an awareness of each other and enjoying each other’s company. Alex is surprised at how well his marriage is turning out – Jane is a wonderful companion, an enthusiastic lover and he’s clearly very fond of her. But the rot sets in when he begins to experience nightmares in which Jane’s ordeal at the hands of Pikeford and the death of his mother start to overlap, and later, starts experiencing waking visions, flashes of memory about the past which seem to contradict the story he’s always believed – that he found his mother’s body. Jane wants desperately to help him, but recognises the signs of the return of the ‘old’ Alex, the one who keeps everyone at arm’s length and allows nobody to truly know him – and can only watch as he retreats farther and farther away from her, the relaxed and more open Alex she’s come to know disappearing under the weight of his burdens.
As I said at the outset, Ms. Preston does a marvellous job of conveying Alex’s increasing confusion over what his dreams and flashes of memory might mean, his fears that maybe he’s losing his mind and his desperation to keep it all bottled up for fear of being thought weak. Jane is presented equally well, her fears for Alex, her refusal to give up on him and desperation to help him… all of them portrayed with subtlety and nuance. I was thoroughly engaged by the story and eager to get back to it, although somewhere around the middle of the book the pacing slowed and I felt that we were treading water for a while, waiting for the next phase of the story to start. I also realised around the same time that while Alex’s story is, without doubt, an extremely well-written and interesting one, the romance is very much in the back seat. This is the story of a young man finding out the truth about a traumatic event which has shaped his life – which, to be fair, he probably wouldn’t have done without Jane’s staunch support – rather than one about two childhood friends falling in love. It’s clear that Alex thinks highly of Jane and there’s no doubt he’s sexually attracted to her but there’s not a great deal beyond that sexual attraction for most of the book; there’s no real indication he thinks of her as anything more than a great friend he happens to lust after, and I never really felt him as a romantic hero.
Christmas With His Wallflower Wife isn’t really a Christmas story – it ends at Christmas but the bulk of the action takes place before, so don’t go in expecting lots of Christmas cheer and festive spirit! It is, however, the engrossing tale of a man’s battle against what we might today call PTSD in an era where therapy was unheard of and men were expected to be strong and protective and to never show any sign of weakness. I’m giving the book a hearty recommendation because, even though the romance is perhaps not quite as strong as I’d have liked, the story as a whole held my interest and I was completely invested in discovering how everything would turn out.
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Grade: B+
Book Type: Historical Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 11/12/19
Publication Date: 11/2019
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.
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Great review as always, Caz. Happy holidays!
My reading experience of this book was very similar to yours: I was saddened by but ultimately grew tired of the repetition of Alex’s quandary in the middle-to-end of the story, I wished for more of a love connection between H/h, and I waffled mightily over what grade to assign it. (Three stars due to the competent writing vs. the near-nonexistent romantic bond between Alex and Jane.)
On the plus side, I liked Jane, liked that she practiced with her guns (lol), and stuck with them in pushing the story to its resolution. She was a good heroine, kind, strong, and an excellent foil for Alex’s often immature self-absorption.
Visiting with the Beauchamp family, however, was the best part of the book for me. Overall a good series, and I’m grateful that Harlequin/M&B currently have such a talented roster of enjoyable HR authors.
Thanks Madge – same to you :)
It was a tricky one to grade, as I said upthread – I wish there had been more romance, but I really liked Jane and her good common sense, plus I really did want to know what happened and was engrossed in the book, and that, for me, merits the fairly high grade
And yes, thank God for Mills & Boon/Harlequin Historicals – they’re still turning out good historicals on a fairly regular basis and have a lot of really good authors who regularly wipe the floor with the bigger names of the major publishers. (That lots of them are British also helps!).
They “have a lot of really good authors who regularly wipe the floor with the bigger names of the major publishers.” Just as a heads-up, Harlequin is a subsidiary of HarperCollins. And Carina Press and Avon are part of the Harlequin family. But from what I understand about subsidiaries and imprints, they have different editors, acquirers, etc. than other branches.
I do appreciate that Harlequin and Carina Press accept unsolicited submissions from unagented authors with the Submittable online submission system. I don’t know how many stories they actually choose from the slush pile, but it’s a testament to the romance genre’s willingness to hear from new voices rather than keeping everything closed shop.
Oh, yes I’m aware who owns Harlequin, but they – and the other imprints of HC you mention – do seem to be very “separate”. Perhaps I should have said that M&B is frequently turning out HR that wipes the floor with books from Avon, Forever, St. Martin’s etc.
Ah, thanks for the clarification.
Avon, Carina Press, and Harlequin are definitely different in their approaches to romance. And from a marketing perspective, that’s not a bad idea.
About your comment regarding Harlequin’s HRs, authors are allowed a 75,000 word count instead of 50,000, which I think makes a huge difference for world building and character development. I don’t know what Avon’s word count rules are, and Carina Press is pretty open. On that note, Carina is great at genre mashing, but I think their HR catalog is weak in comparison. Oh well! At least we readers have options among the three, plus other romance publishers.
As ever a great review Caz. I really liked this one but perhaps because it is the final one in the series in which all the loose ends got tied up. I particularly liked that the villain from the first book got his cumuppance although I was annoyed that Alex was taken in by him and did not respect Jane’s misgivings. Leo from the first book is still my favourite hero of the series. I think that is because being older myself I do like an older hero. However Ms Preston is definitely one of the better authors in this genre and I particularly like that in the series she has given several nods to Georgette Heyer. I have exchanged e mails with her and she is very approachable and even encouraged me to write my first ever review notwithstanding that I pointed out I could not hope to emulate your very thorough analysis of the books you review.
Thank you :) I’ve enjoyed the series too, and it’s definitely one of the best of recent years. I’m looking forward to whatever Ms. Preston comes up with next!
Thanks for giving such a thorough review, Ms. Owens. I like that the book addresses PTSD in a manner that feels appropriate to the time period and features a marriage of convenience (i.e. protecting a friend’s honor). But it sounds like the story sags in places and that something is… off about the chemistry between the leads. Considering how large my TBR list is already (thanks a lot AAR…), I think I’ll give this one a pass.
I was torn on this one – in the end, I went with my gut for the grade because I really was invested in the story and wanted to know the truth about Alex’s past. I did feel there was a bit of repetition around the middle, but the rest of it was pretty well-paced. Maybe save this one for when you’re looking for something a bit different.
Preston’s done a pretty good job this year; looking forward to reading this one!
Yes, but what do you think about the title this time? “Christmas with His Wallflower Wife” is one of those borderline titles for me, not quite as bad as “The Truth Behind Her Practical Marriage.”
I wonder if Harlequin is following the titling advice given by successful self-published erotica authors about having to hit the reader over the head with an explicit title. Someone ought to tell Harlequin that they are in the *romance* business, not the erotica business. Big difference… For one thing, I have a legitimate excuse for such gems as “Unlocked by the Burglar” and “Matty Midnight and Snowy Schultz: Two Gay Burglars Get Some.” What’s Harlequin’s excuse? (And shameless plug over…)
I think Harlequin titles have pretty much always been very… to the point. I know for a fact that the authors don’t always come up with them – and actually, I’d much rather something like this than the stupid song/movie title rip offs that so much HR gets stuck with. At least, with these books, they’re “what it says on the tin.”
Good point. I guess it depends if you want something that clearly states what’s in the book versus something like “Dukes Just Want to Have Fun” or “Dukes Prefer Blondes” (actual titles I’ve seen.)
Harlequin Presents has the most explanatory titles ever: HIS TWIN CONSEQUENCES, HIS VIRGIN MISTRESS, PUBLIC SECRETARY PRIVATE MISTRESS, FALLING FOR HIS ARRANGED WIFE, etc. I love HPs—the titles are just the icing on the cake.
“The titles are just the icing on the cake.” It sure sounds like it!
I’ve never read a Harlequin Presents, but they sound like over the top fun. I’m just surprised in 2019 that Harlequin still gets away with publishing a line devoted to stereotypical, sexy foreigners. But you will have no complaints from me in that department.
It’s not as horrible as some of the others TBH.
Yes, she’s been a solidly B/B+ author this year and is definitely one of the best in the Harlequin Historical stable!