A FAMILY AFFAIR by Jennifer Wenn tells the story of how Lady Francesca Darling snagged herself a husband only to hit a snag when her new husband abandons her upon hearing of her pregnancy. This story had great potential, but with the grammatical errors, historical mistakes and excessive ink dedicated to repetitive dialogue, the story falls a little flat.
When Lady Francesca Darling, "Fanny" to her family and close friends, was five years old, she proposed marriage to Devlin Ross, at that time the heir to the duchy of Hereford. Devlin liked the attention paid to him, but politely tells her that they will have to wait until she is eighteen because that is when women can marry.
Circumstances prevent them from meeting for another thirteen years, but meet they do at Fanny's first ball. They quickly fall in love and marry. Problems arise, though, when Fanny discovers she is pregnant, and Devlin freaks out because he is afraid he will infect his child with his father's wickedness. Devlin does not want to hurt his child, and so stupidly thinks that removing himself from the child's life will allow his child to grow up in a happy home.
Fanny turns to her family, which includes many of society's leading persons, even the Prince Regent himself, to implement a scheme that will bring Devlin back to her. Hence the title A FAMILY AFFAIR.
On the whole, I enjoyed the characters and their interactions. Fanny's family is fantastic and it was fun to see how a family of all men deals with the only girl in the family line. I loved the basic plot, but I think it would have been improved if there had been some drama other than the relationship. The mention of Devlin's trip to Bath in search of a traitor could have been expanded to add dimension to the story. If some of the repetitive themes/dialogue were streamlined and trimmed down, the espionage story could have been easily implemented without making the book too long.
Technically, I had some trouble following sentences and ideas because of subject verb disagreement, incorrect tense changes, and double or triple negatives. Historical facts, such as calling the house where the Prince Regent lived "Charlton House" when it was actually named Carlton House, were also distracting. This story could use a thorough editing. With editing and some revamping of the plotline, this would be a fantastic novel, and I would definitely re-read it.
**Review originally written for The Romance Reviews.com at http://www.theromancereviews.com/viewbooksreview.php?bookid=8854
