I wanted to like this book more than I did. I was intrigued because it's a different take on books typically set in this era. The hero, Thomas, is a virgin because he doesn't want to take the chance of fathering a child to pass on his family's "curse." The heroine isn't a virgin, obviously, since she's pregnant. We later learn that she was raped by a neighbor and that is how she became pregnant. I also like that the author took on Thomas' family's "curse," a genetic disease called Huntington's. To this day, there is still no cure for it.

These differences are what kept the book from getting a one star from me. The remainder of the book didn't appeal to me. The structure of the writing itself is poor; the pages are littered with comma splices, which are like nails on a chalkboard every time I come across one (and there was at least one per page - or, at least, it felt that way to me).

(If you aren't sure what a comma splice is, it is two complete sentences joined improperly with a comma. For example, this is a comma splice: "The cat was outside, she was sure that it would return inside shortly." NO. This is wrong and so annoying! It can be corrected in a few different ways: by separating the sentences [The cat was outside. She was sure that it would return inside shortly.], or using a semi-colon [The cat was outside; she was sure that it would return inside shortly.], or using a conjunction [The cat was outside, but she was sure that it would return inside shortly.])

And then there were the ridiculous coincidences in the book. The one that bothered me the most was that the hero and heroine were in a shipwreck, and they were practically washed ashore onto Thomas' estate. Really? The baddies were all Very Bad and didn't seem to serve much purpose, and they were dispatched with relatively quickly. David, the neighbor who raped Rosa, shows up unexpectedly towards the end of the book and demands Rosa to be "returned" to him. When she doesn't immediately back down, he ends up calling her a whore and threatens to tell everyone the true parentage of the child Rosa is carrying. Thomas has bought up all of David's father's debt and uses that as leverage to assure his silence. That was much too conveniently tied up in a neat bow - and, to be honest, I was left wondering why David bothered to return at all, since his disinterest in her was made clear from the beginning.

Altogether, it wasn't the story itself that interested me; it was the fact that the author attempted to tackle a tough subject (genetic disorders and whether potential carriers should have children). That was the only thing that saved this from being a one-star book, in my opinion. ( )