, by Linda Ladd. Despite there being 360 pages there's not a lot to this book. I'm also not sure why it's called moonspell. The moon has nothing to do with it.Basically, an Irish woman named Jillian has fallen on hard times. Her father died fighting the king, one of her brothers is exiled and the other presumed dead. Her lands have been given to an Englishman whom she has decided to hate because he is English. Forced to marry him, she rubs clay on her face to keep him away from her because I guess dried clay looks like pox scars and she assumes all men want out of a woman is beauty. He sees her maskless one day, and does not know it's her. He is overwhelmed by her beauty and almost rapes her. After that she's scared he'll find out her deception and scared of him because of what he did to her (at the same time she's turned on by the idea), he sees she's scared and thinks it's because she's a pox-ridden maiden. Besides, he'd rather think about the other woman because in arranged marriages you get a free pass for cheating on your spouse.
After a time she sees he's actually sort of kind, and besides, she's fallen in lust with him, though she hates every bit of attraction she feels for him. She keeps up the disguise because men are pigs, right? I felt the depth of her deception was unfair to him. Despite being unable to control himself around her (though he does learn how later) he felt like the victim for a lot of the book.
Meanwhile a feud with a neighbor is getting rough, and she gets sick (not due to the feud) and gets sent to England to stay with his brothers and sister. She likes them, tells them of her disguise (being sick she had no choice). He comes to meet with her in England and is mad at her for fooling him. Now, being that the mask of ugliness was the whole point of the book, as it says on the back of the book, I was surprised it only lasted about 150 pages. The rest of the book has to do with Jillian and Justin and their circle of
"I hate you"
"Well I hate you too but I can't resist how pretty you are"
"Well when you pull me kicking and fighting against you and force me to kiss you I can't help but like it"
"Well then how about if I just shove you onto the bed and watch you cower in a corner while I creep towards you?"
"Sounds great, and I'll be like I'm about to scream for help when my body will feel fire for you and I'll shut up and love you"
Yeah, that about sums up their relationship. For several months they act like normal married people but we don't see that, we get a time-sweep where it says they lived happily.
As you can imagine, everything resolves. Her brothers, the feud. Oh, there's also a withcraft subplot where she carelessly tells people about magic and herbs and demonstrates her "powers" and pretends to shapeshift into her cat. Because you know, even though the book says witch burnings had basically stopped she wouldn't have any residual fears taught by her parents and grandparents.
It reads like a movie, like the camera follows one person, then the camera focuses on someone else who's in the room and catches their expression at what's going on. The book feels like it is a cheaply made romance movie starring newbie actors. It's still enjoyable, just don't expect much. I know it sounds like I complained a lot but I actually did enjoy it. If I hadn't read it I wouldn't have missed anything, though.
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