The Forbidden Love of an Officer is advertised as book 7, the final book, in Jane Lark’s The Marlow Family Secrets Regency romance series, but apparently it’s actually a prequel, and it’s not a romance.
Seventeen year old Lady Eleanor believes herself in love with Paul, a twenty-one year old army captain, but her father, a duke, refuses to let the two of them marry. He is insisting she marry a duke, an older man whom Eleanor does not want to marry.
Now, I feel for Eleanor, she seems like she’s in a difficult situation, but the decisions she makes are the kind that you would expect of an immature teenager infatuated with a young man she knows little about. And Paul came across as a selfish, more worldly character (he has been in battle so he’s seen some bad things), who doesn’t seem to care about the things he’s going to expose the naïve, young Eleanor to, as long as he can finally have her in his bed. Honestly, I didn’t even feel like he really cared about Eleanor, at the beginning of the novel when we were in his thoughts, he kept thinking of her as “the girl”, not as “Eleanor”.
The worst thing about this book though is that it breaks the cardinal rule of romance; there was no happy ending. In fact, spoiler alert, not only does Paul die, but after his death, Eleanor’s naivety allows her to be taken advantage of, and she is eventually assaulted and abused.
When I pick up a romance I expect to read about a couple that may face many difficulties, but in the end find happiness together, and this book did not do that so I can’t recommend it. Maybe if it had been advertised in another genre I could have recommended it, but it wasn’t. I will not read this author again, and will not recommend her to other readers.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
If you’re still interested in this book, it will be available on August 31 2025.
Life, Tea, and Everything 