Description: Lady Sabine is harboring a skin blemish, one, that if revealed, could cause her to be branded as a witch, put her life in danger, and damage her chances of making a good marriage. After all, what nobleman would want to marry a woman so flawed?
Sir Bennet is returning home to protect his family from an imminent attack by neighboring lords who seek repayment of debts. Without fortune or means to pay those debts, Sir Bennet realizes his only option is to make a marriage match with a wealthy noblewoman. As a man of honor, he loathes the idea of courting a woman for her money, but with time running out for his family’s safety, what other choice does he have?
As Lady Sabine and Sir Bennet are thrust together under dangerous circumstances, will they both be able to learn to trust each other enough to share their deepest secrets? Or will those secrets ultimately lead to their demise?
My Thoughts: It's been a few years since I have read a Jody Hedlund novel and, that I remember, the book I did read was an adult fiction novel rather than YA. I had not been all that impressed by that book than so I did not have high expectations for this one. However, I ended up being glad to have given this one a shot.
As a YA novel, For Love and Honor is not quiet as serious as other adult novels set in this time period. The reasons for the characters needing to get married is fairly predictable, one needing to save his land and the other having no other prospects. Yet the book did an admirable job of setting up a foundation for their eventual romance by giving the characters a common interest and passion. Rather than falling in love because the other was attractive and sweet, these characters fell in love over works of art and a calling to preserve the past for future generations.
Perhaps the weakest facet of this book was the conflict toward the end, when Sir Bennet must save his family and Sabine must overcome the consequences of keeping her blemish a secret. Though I understood that their ages likely played into their choices, Sir Bennet's stubbornness to accept help from her or anyone else still seemed foolish with the fate of so many people weighed in the balance. And sadly, he never did have to learn to swallow his pride as everyone else simply accommodated it rather than remind him that he shouldn't be in the position to postpone saving lives.
Even through that, however, I still found myself holding on to the end, cheering for these characters to find their happily ever after. And I will just have to go back and read the rest of the series now that I have seen what this one is like.
I did NOT receive this book in exchange for a review. The decision to review it was my own.
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