

The courtship is pretend and not real because Clara wants very much to marry and have children, whereas Rex does not believe in true love and wants to avoid marriage for as long as possible. This will benefit Clara by drawing the notice of other eligible men, who, in theory, will swoop in to console her when she and Rex break things off. Rex also needs to get back into the good graces of his father and his aunt, both of whom want him to think about marriage, so Clara will allow him to pretend to court her. He will take over the Lady Truelove column since Clara needs help, and Clara will pay him a large sum for it since Rex needs money. So Rex is justly annoyed with Clara who inadvertently made his life very difficult.Īfter some banter and exchanges of blackmail threats, Clara and Rex reach an agreement.

Alas, Rex figures out that Clara used the conversation for a column – and his friend took the advice, to disastrous effect, AND the friend thinks Rex must have given Lady Truelove the information. Clara uses this conversation to write one of her columns. One day she overhears Lord Rex Galbraith, a mild rake of the “sleeps with willing widows and does some gambling” disposition, giving his friend some very detailed advice on how to break things off with a widow who wishes a dalliance to become a true courtship. As a shy woman with minimal romantic experience she has a terrible time coming up with advice. While Trouble With True Love was a fine standalone, I did keep wishing that I had read the first book, if only so I could know more about Irene and the paper.Īnyway, at the start of this book, Clara is managing the paper on her own and struggling to write the Lady Truelove advice column.

The Trouble with True Love is a sequel to The Truth about Love and Dukes, which tells Irene’s story. When the sister, Irene, leaves on a honeymoon, Clara is left to manage Irene’s newspaper until she returns. All her life she’s been overshadowed by her older sister (they mutually adore each other – the overshadowing is unintentional). There’s nothing new here but it’s all quite delightful due to excellent characterization and use of language.Ĭlara is a newcomer to Society and is shy.

The Trouble With True Love is a historical romance that combines the ‘rake meets wallflower’ plot device with the ‘pretend dating’ plot device and the ‘advice columnist gets characters into trouble’ plot device.
