Books With Balls: Not Quite A Husband

Sherry Thomas
Not Quite a Husband
Bantam
ISBN-10: 0553592432
ISBN-13: 978-0553592436
Historical romance
India and England, 1897
May 19, 2009

Their marriage lasted only slightly longer than the honeymoon—to no one’s surprise, not even Bryony Asquith’s. A man as talented, handsome, and sought after by society as Leo Marsden couldn’t possibly want to spend his entire life with a woman who rebelled against propriety by becoming a doctor. Why, then, three years after their annulment and half a world away, does he track her down at her clinic in the remotest corner of India?

Leo has no reason to think Bryony could ever forgive him for the way he treated her, but he won’t rest until he’s delivered an urgent message from her sister—and fulfilled his duty by escorting her safely back to England. But as they risk their lives for each other on the journey home, will the biggest danger be the treacherous war around them—or their rekindling passion?

Number of Balls (scale of 1-5, 5 being best): 4.5

Why is this book ballsy?

1. I think it’s safe to say that many romance readers read for one main, ultimate purpose: to fall in love with what they’re reading. I did with this book. Irrevocably. My heart practically leaped onto a plate and served itself up on the buffet that is this book’s offering of win.

2. NQaH was emotionally exhausting, but in a good way. The author didn’t hesitate to pull all the punches emotionally, giving the situations and the characters themselves that much more realism.

3. This book came to have a place in my heart that I didn’t expect, and made me realize something on a personal level that’s very important. Seriously. Like – whoa.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. India is not a favorite setting for me with historical romance. I’ve found it to be the case in past reads that India itself takes over the book, flooding me with too many details of the “scent of rich spices” or at differing times not enough detail, making the landscape boring and dull. Yes, I admit to being picky, but it’s all about that balance. Must have it. I felt like Not Quite a Husband pulled off just about everything perfectly, especially in terms of achieving a phenomenal overall balance between character development, an interesting setting and plot, pace and writing style.

What surprised me the most about this book, probably, was how connected I felt to our heroine, Bryony. What a wonderful name, and somewhat ironic for me personally. I won’t get into why this book struck me so personally, but it’s true that it did. India itself is much more of a background here than it has been in other novels, yet it lives fairly well through the conversations and actions of our main couple. Bryony feels as if she belongs there, what with the barren lifestyle she’d chosen for herself of a tent and few enough belongings to each pack onto her person or a pack animal. She’s rugged, capable and self confident to the point of being a miniature fort all her own. It’s a bit of a self defense technique, one I could readily understand.

It’s usually the women in these novels that do the softening first, that are the first to give and relent the shields that they’ve erected. Leo Marsden, however, was a breath of fresh air, a man who was very much a man, yet also capable of atoning for wrongs he did to Bryony. And it’s true that Bryony in turn had wronged him during their marriage, too, but it was an inexcusable action on Leo’s part that charted the course for their disastrous and short marriage. Bewildered as to why, it takes Leo following Bryony for years till he finally confronts her once more to fetch her back to England. And the showdown between the two is one of the fiercest of hearts.

The way these two processed emotion was simply amazing. There really are no appropriate words that I can surmise; it’s such an emotional wringer of a book. Both Bryony and Leo have come to a point in their lives where, finally, they are seeming to deal with their emotions in a rather up front and brutal fashion. They hold nothing back and as a result I was often breathless, moved to tears or plain exhausted by the wringers they’d put me through as a reader. Recalling the way in which the book hit me personally, perhaps I might feel this book a little stronger than the next reader, but I think it’s probably safe to say that others will know what I mean should they pick this book up too.

The plot is a simple one. It’s a discovery, a journey towards one, rather, whereby Bryony and Leo come to terms with their past together and learn to heal. Due to the strenuous and deadly scenarios the find themselves in with India’s Swat Valley uprising, their romance is fueled with a desperate kind of adrenaline that aided in moving along nicely what might otherwise have felt entirely too heavy emotion-wise. At times, I thought a bit more action wouldn’t have hurt, but there was really never a moment when I did not want to turn the page or again become that long ago reader that didn’t have to worry about getting up early the next day.

Ms. Thomas’ writing is so very lush, both in terms of the settings and the emotions she conjures out of the characters. It actually took me till the end of the book to realize that this was indeed a tie-in to her last book, Delicious, and as much as I enjoyed that one as well, I loved that this book stood solidly on its own. I’ve not had the opportunity to read her first book yet, Private Arrangements, but going solely from having read her second book, I feel that Thomas has grown exponentially as a solid writer, with a style that was once again amazing to read, like sinking into ones favorite chair in the whole world to do nothing but read the day away. If a book can make me forget the day I had at work, or make the fact that I’ve got to vacuum for the fifth time that day seem pithy, then it’s done it’s job ten fold for me and I find that I’m extremely grateful to a book and its creator.

This book felt like coming home to what so many of us hold dear to our hearts: love redeemed, a person to share our life with and the certainty that it will last forever. Together. This book may well be the one I recommend the most this year in terms of historical romance. All I can say in conclusion is when will we see Ms. Thomas’ next wonderful book?

Rating: Five Scoops

To learn more about the author and her work, visit her site.