When Love Creeps in

 So I'm returning to the romance genre with an author that's new to me, Carol Arens and one of my favorite tropes: Cinderella.  It's one of my favorite fairytales and I honestly enjoy seeing authors putting their own spin on it.

Characters: Clara Albright, her family (her sister Lilly and her children George and Annabeth), and Andrew Benton (with appearances from his mother (name not given) and brother, Miles)

Premise: A man proposes a marriage of convenience to take care of the woman his half-brother ruined financially.

In 1873, Clara Albright was a society woman who was ready to put away her mourning clothes after her husband's death and it all comes crashing down when her financial advisor, Miles Holmes, steals from her, forcing her to take a job to support her sister Lilly and her children, George and Annabeth.  Two years later, she's struggling to make ends meet by making and selling dresses, which isn't that lucrative of a business, especially when she often has to stop to take care of her sister or one of her children.  As you can imagine, as a woman in this era, Clara doesn't have a lot of options and there's only so much she can do.

Then Andrew Benton (the back of the book said Belton, but I'm assuming that was a typo cause the book constantly said Benton) who turns out to be Miles' half-brother comes along proposing marriage to make sure that she has financial stability because he feels guilty about what Miles did and feels that it's the proper way to take care of this, which, my dude!  Not the best selling point.  As to be expected, Clara turns him down flat, not wanting to be beholden to any man ever again in terms of her financial security, which honestly, I don't blame her for.  However, after several hiccups---George running away to join a factory to help provide for the family as the "man of the house" and Annabeth getting sick---Clara finally agrees to the marriage of convenience. 

At first, things seem to go well.  The marriage is fine and they're both happy with the arrangement---her insistence of looking over the finances notwithstanding, though I think he understood why it was important given everything that happened as he doesn't put up too much of a fight about this---but then you know, those blasted feelings crop in even as you learn more about Andrew whose revealed to be the son of a minister and knows exactly what kind of scoundrel his half-brother is because his father was the same way, though Andrew hasn't told their mother because she dotes on Miles and he doesn't want to break her heart and you get to see when he starts falling for her and they eventually consummate the marriage, resulting in Clara becoming pregnant.

As expected, Miles comes back and there's tension as Andrew, Clara, and the rest of the family keep the man's secret.  But then Andrew goes away on business and after he's reported missing, Miles takes over Andrew's finances, not letting Clara have access to the ledgers.  Of course, Clara doesn't stand for this and looks in her husband's office and discovers that Miles has cooked the books to make it look like Clara's stealing from her mother-in-law.  Thankfully, Andrew comes home, and in a surprising twist, Miles throws the false ledger into the fire before, Clara, Miles, and Andrew talk and all is forgiven.

About a year later, Miles comes home to spend Christmas with everyone, announcing that he's married, that he's paid back another of his victims, and that he's going to be a minister.  Which, honestly, floored me.  That was not how I expected things to go. 

Throughout the book---even though this isn't part of the Love Inspired line---there were references to God and prayer, and the theme of the book was love and forgiveness.  In some parts of the story, I was reminded of the Love Comes Softly series by Janette Oke, and if this is the caliber of the author's writing, I look forward to reading more as I give this particular story a 6.