Back Cover description: Italian count Marco di Vincenti feared for baby Angelina's safety. He needed a wife to get custody-so he proposed a marriage of convenience to the baby's English nanny, Alice Walsingham!
Having secretly fallen in love with Marco, Alice found the wedding pure torture! All her family and five hundred other guests expected to see lots of passion....Marco was all too willing to oblige in public-but what about in private, on their wedding night...?

If you can get past the shaky beginning, the story does get better. Marco falls in love with Alice and by page 128 you realize he does love her in the way it matters. There is tension about the grandmother, and all ends well.

I don't believe in love at first sight so this book didn't actually blew me away. They start off fighting and hating each other. Then all of a sudden they're inlove. The author did not give enough details of how they actually fell in love. Overall, the story was mediocre. Not too boring and not too exciting.

Ben Crighton, patriarch of three generations of lawyers, has commanded a family gathering to celebrate the fiftieth birthday of his twin sons, David and Jon. Attending the party are the honorees, their spouses, their children, and their nephews and nieces. Besides blood and Ben's iron hand, the thread that binds the Creighton's is the family law firm.

However, this happy occasion turns into a major brawl as everyone of the participants brings their own personal calling card to the table. David and Jon, who seemingly were always allies, suddenly become nasty rivals, competing to lead the company. David's spouse Tiggy, Ben's favorite, is struggling with her image of the former model, who gave it all up for marriage. Jon's wife Jenny, who is the real foundation of the clan, allows her jealousy of Tiggy to finally surface. The twins' children, Max and Livvy, also have deep secrets that they plan to surface during the birthday bash. This is one party that threatens to destroy forever the relationships among family members.

Ever popular and prolific Penny Jordan has written a interesting contemporary family drama filled with many intriguing but stereotypical characters. Though there is little of substance to the story line except hidden agendas and secret scandals, readers who enjoy character-driven relationship novels will want to read Ms. Jordan's latest release.

Harriet Klausner

After putting down "Reseach Into Marriage" by Penny Jordan, I had the feeling that I had just sit through a 15 minute movie and had been expected to completely understand each character and why they do what they do. I didn't feel like I had REALLY gotten to know each character fully and to tell you the truth, I wasn't too impressed with the ending. The book sort of began and ended with one quick flash, leaving you with only tidbits of what happened in between. Let me explain:

Meet Jessica, an up and coming psychologist/author, perfectly content on leading a single life. Jessica, growing weary of her brother-in-law David's advances decides to prove that it IS possible to marry someone without romance and in some cases successful ones are built without love. She hopes to research the theory and write a book, proving those around her wrong. She also hopes to thwart David's advances so her pregnant sister Andrea will stop worrying that her sister and husband are having an affair. So Jessica writes an ad searching for a husband, and it ends up landing in the lap of a very handsome doctor named Lyle Garnett. He is a widowed father to two young boys and this is exactly the kind of stability he's hoping to give his children. He's never home with them and he thinks having a female presence in the house will be good for the rascals. So Jessica and Lyle marry agreeing that this is just business and that no personal interactions will ever occur between them. This, of course, doesn't last long and starts to put a strain on the two of them. And on top of that, David's advances towards Jessica seem to be growing and at a very vicious rate. This prompts Lyle to believe that Jessica and David are in fact having an affair right under the nose of poor, pregnant Amanda.

Now, I'm not one to give the ending of a book away, and I won't do that here, but I do have a small complaint. David never really gets his come-uppance. I mean, the man's a vial, disturbing creature who deserves to get the boot and does he? Well, not really,at least not in my opinion anyways. That is one reason why I didn't really get into "Research Into Marriage". The book contains only 217 pages. In my opinion, Penny Jordan could've made this into an entertaining novel had she extended the pages by half. There just isn't enough information for the reader to really feel the characters. There are so many things left unsaid and undone that you almost throw your hands up in the air screaming "What??? No, it can't end like this!". I've been a fan of Penny's for a while now and I can assure you that the rest of her work is great, but I really don't suggest this one at all. There's just not enough substance for me.

Gennie Bailey-Rogers

It's not the best romance book and it's not my favorite romance book that's set in England but A Time To Dream by Penny Jordan wasn't bad and for the most part I enjoyed reading about the romance story about a guy named Luke Chalmers and a lady named Melanie Foden though it definitely wasn't a keeper!

I thought this was a pretty good book. I am not one for Harlequin, so taking on this book was new to me. It was okai, though, and it really got to the heart of the main character's soul. A little slow, but it is worth reading a short book like that. Very relaxing still.

i bought the book b/c the plot and the first three pages captured my attention....i hated the book by page 79...

jordan took a break from the plot and burdened the reader with so much backstory that it could/should have been a book on its own...

then, when she brought the story back to the story it advertised itself as, she dropped into the old girl meets boy and ignores him-boy seduces girl-they fall in love and act stupid plot...

what happened to the revenge? what happened to the cool, hard woman...and please save me from male characters that can cure even the scars of rape with one night of good sex...

this book was poorly written and i wonder about the editor and publisher....what was going on in their minds...

don't buy it...don't check it out at the library...warn your friends..!!!!

While I'm a huge fan of Penny Jordan way back when she was writing serials for Harlequinn, this book was a terrible romance. Three quarters of this book was spent discussing murder, rape, homosexuality, satanism, child abuse, suicides, etc. There was no mystery involved. From the onset, we knew who had committed the crime. The romance between the two main characters, Pepper and Miles French, was completely unbelievable mainly due to its brevity (there was perhaps 3 chapters devoted to that). With very limited interaction, it seems ludicrous that they both suddenly realize that they are in love.. More importantly, I was really disappointed at how Pepper's character disintegrated into such a weak woman. What initially was a very strong and dynamic character who had overcome so much became a woman who could barely scream when she was in danger. She was so malleable towards the end of the book that I felt like I was reading about another character.

I would not recommend reading this book if you are primarily looking for a romance. While the backgrounds of the men were compelling, one would feel cheated that nearly the entire book was devoted to them. One also felt cheated at how easily the villain of the book was dispatched. Try reading Penny Jordan's other books instead. This can be bypassed for sure!

What had the potential to be a great book, turned out to be so-so. I knew within the first 10 pages what the great threat was without being told by the author. That did not however, prevent me from thinking it was a good story.

What disappointed me was how the author got lost in her own words. It seemed as though she wasn't satisfied with the first description that she gave of the major "players"; she had to do it again in much more detail. Where these descriptions were placed made the storyline disjointed.

I did enjoy the premise of the story though. Miles French is definitely a hero, however unlikely.

Penny Jordan is my favorite Harlequin Presents author and i expect the best of her. Its just too bad that this books isnt of them though it was an okay read.

Sypnosis:
Some scars wound too deeply to heal. Amber's once lithe body had been crippled and disfigured by a horrible accident. The prospect of never walking again disheartened her, but much worse was the pain she felt when her fiance suddenly abandoned her.

This book was not the author's best work. Penny really let me down because the title does not match the activity in the book at all. Nevertheless, the book is a decent read.

Even thought I love The Crightons family stories, this book didn't hit my romantic heart. This book just closed the door on the last novel I read dealing with Saul and Tullah's love story (which I loved so much). It as nice to see that Louise have gotten on with her life, though.