Title: An Unlikely Alliance
Author: Rachel Van Dyken
Publisher: Astraea Press
Publication Date: Feb 2012
Classification: Adult Romance Novel
Challenge: None

Summary from Goodreads:

Spoiled New York rogue Royce Mc Arthur lives a charmed life. He sees no reason to settle down, until his mother issues her decree that he must grow up, find a wife and produce some grandchildren…preferably before she dies of old age. But his choices are quite limited considering the only women of his acquaintance are ones of ill repute.

Meeting the beautiful Evelyn DeJarlias at a ball gives him hope he may have found the one. Her southern blue collar outspokenness and lack of refinement draws him like a moth to a flame. Unfortunately, she does not find him nearly as endearing — consistently refusing his lavish gifts and his attentions, she poses a challenge he simply cannot ignore.

My Thoughts:

I really enjoyed this story from the start because Evelyn and Royce had so much personality. They were great when they started out the book because you got to see what each character was all about. Evelyn was living on a farm until her daddy got a huge sum of money for the farm lands they lived on so it was time for Evelyn to be introduced to society! Of course on the flip side of this we get to read about Royce who is a spoiled man who feels he can just keep living his life, drinking and enjoying the company of his mistresses, even if he is in a bind because his two mistresses just found out about each other.

These characters were good on their own but then put them in the same room together and there was this spark! I just love in historical romances how the leading lady can see beyond the front that rakes put up. Evelyn was passionate and didn’t want to be spending her time around Royce but he knew he needed her, he was falling for the girl of the ton who was different.

Overall, this was just a quick 80 pages short historical romance story but it captured my attention. The witty banter between the characters was great and I loved watching them fall for each other even though that is not what each one originally wanted. It was certainly enough to wet my appetite to try other books by Van Dyken!  My only complaint was I hated it ending so quickly. I would have liked to see their story fold out a little bit more. This is a good clean historical novel though so give this short story a try, you will be dying for more before you can finish this book. This one gets 4.5 hearts from me for a really entertaining quick read.