Review: The Kiss

Not exactly a new read, especially with the time crunch I'm under, but I realized I had posted this review on Goodreads within the past month but hadn't put it up over here as well.  Enjoy!

Title: The Kiss
Author: Sophia Nash
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Widows Club #2
Grade: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Summary:

He had once been her cherished childhood companion, and then the man she lusted for in secret, but Georgiana Wilde hasn't seen recently widowed Quinn Fortesque since the day he married another woman and shattered her heart. Then fate intervenes and brings the man she dreams about each night back to her . . .
Returning to the estate on family business, Quinn would like nothing more than to turn the land over to Georgiana and leave the memories of his former life behind. But then the brooding marquis finds himself under the spell of the beauty he once left behind. With her barely concealed passions, Georgiana melts his coolly guarded heart. Suddenly his well-ordered world is in danger of crashing down. And it all began with just one kiss . . . .

Review:

The summary on the back doesn't give a very clear description of the book.  Georgiana had also been married and widowed (thus her inclusion in the Widows Club series), and more specifically, was married to Quinn's cousin and their mutual childhood friend Anthony.  So of course a large portion of this book ends up being the "you still love him!"/"it was always you!" tango.

Most of the book really grated on my nerves. The characters themselves were extremely annoying. I can't name a single character from the book I would want to meet in real life. Generally their actions didn't make sense or didn't jive with how they were described. Quinn is supposed to be a diplomat- never once do we see him be diplomatic, in the present or in flashbacks of his past. In fact, his past seems pretty irrelevant except that we are told his dead wife was bad. Other than that we don't know anything about their marriage or why he married her in the first place.  Their marriage is a blatant plot device. And Luc, the "hero" from the first book in the series, spends most of the time strutting around acting like an ass. Not going to read that book... Though this is not usually a pet peeve of mine, everyone's actions were cpmpletely out of place for the time period.
The main redeeming factor of the book was its ending, which I found sweet and endearing. The final resolution to the Big Misunderstanding was fairly heartwarming, and if the entire book had been like the final 50 pages I would have given The Kiss between 4 and 5 stars. While that is not the case, I'm glad I pushed through to finish it, because the cute ending justified picking it up in the first place, but I would still not recommend this book.