First Comes Marriage By: Mary Balogh

First Comes Marriage is Book I of a new quintet involving the Huxtable family-three sisters, a brother, and a male second cousin. At the start of this book Margaret and Katherine, the eldest and youngest sisters, are living with their young brother Stephen in a modest cottage in a small English country village. Their widowed sister, Vanessa Dew, lives with her in-laws at nearby Rundle Park. But life is about to change dramatically for all of them when Viscount Lyngate arrives unexpectedly on Valentine’s Day, bringing the startlingly unexpected news that Stephen has just inherited an earldom. All four siblings begin a new life at Warren Hall, Stephen’s principal seat. There they find a second cousin they have never met. Constantine Huxtable is the elder brother of the young earl who just died, but he could not inherit himself because he was born two days before his parents married and so was officially illegitimate. Con will weave his enigmatic way through the first four books before having his own story in the fifth.

First Comes Marriage is Vanessa and Viscount Lyngate’s, story. Vanessa and Elliott dislike each other at first sight and nothing improves on second or third sight. But when it becomes clear that Elliott is about to propose marriage to Margaret simply because he needs a wife and she is a convenient candidate, Vanessa decides to take desperate measures and intervene. Her beloved sister has a strong sense of duty and might well accept the horrid Lord Lyngate for the sake of her family though she is deeply in love with a girlhood sweetheart who is off fighting in the Napoleonic Wars. Vanessa has already had her chance at love with Hedley Dew, to whom she was blissfully married for one year before his death. Now is the time to sacrifice herself for her sister, who has had no real chance at love and happiness at all.

Goodreads: 3.82

Paperback, 2009