Read Our Lips! Book Review Blog: 5 Kiss Review: In Bed With A Stranger (McJames #1) by Mary Wine

An Imperfect Match
Brodick McJames is an earl in name only. To secure his clan's future he needs an English wife. Mary Stanford, daughter of the Earl of Warwickshire, will suit perfectly. He's never met her, but what matter? She'll grace his bed eventually, and once she bears his child he need see her no more.
Anne Copper looks just like her noble half-sister, but she was born illegitimate, and can never forget it. The best she can hope for is to stay a serving girl in her own father's house. But when Lady Mary finds herself betrothed to a Scot, it seems there's a use for Anne after all . . .

The woman who arrives in Alcaon is not what Brodick expects, and the passion that grows between them promises far more than a marriage of convenience. When fate draws two together, it may take more than a noblewoman's plot to part them . . .

My Review:

I totally adored and loved this book! Amazing 10 stars!! And what happens to Lady Phillipa and Mary at the end??? OMG, Epic, awesome ending! :)

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Anne is the illegitimate daughter of the Earl and has to play maid to the Earl's true wife, Lady Phillipa and daughter, Mary, so that there won't be any discord in the Earl's home.

Lady Phillipa is cruel though, and doesn't miss an opportunity to be unbearable to her husband's leman (mistress) and their illegitimate children - even though the Earl tells Phillipa he'll give up his leman and children if his wife agrees to give him a son. Phillipa refuses as she nearly died giving birth to Mary and won't ever go through the horror of another birth again.

So Phillipa tolerates her husband's leman and is the picture of tyranny until one day her husband marries his legitimate daughter, Mary, by proxy to his Scottish neighbor, Brodick McJames, pledging a great dowry as well.

Phillipa won't have this and refuses to let her spoiled daughter experience the horrors of child birth. So, instead of giving up her daughter, Mary, to a brute, she switches Mary with her husband's illegitimate daughter, Anne. She instructs Anne that she's to go to Scotland and be with Brodick and return when she's with child. If Anne should refuse, Phillipa threatens to put out all her family from her home and accuse them of stealing and placing them in jail.

Anne agrees and feels horrible that she living is a lie and pretending to be someone she’s not. Once she is with child, she's to return to her family and then Mary would switch places with her and go back to Scotland with the new babe in arms - thus avoiding giving birth.

Anne can't believe the far fetched scheme as she and Mary don't look anything alike, but she's forced into action by the devilish Phillipa who is taking advantage that her husband is out of town for an extended trip and she's in charge.

Anne tries her damnedest to keep her new husband - Brodick from consummating the marriage, but soon finds that she can't keep her eyes or hands off the gorgeous Scotsman. She doesn't make it through a week and soon is head over heels in lust with the Scot. But she feels terrible that she's lying to him and wonders what will be her fate when he finds out the truth, though she's too busy at the moment exploring every inch of him. But the truth will eventually come out.

Will Broderick hear her out, or will he shut her away? Her heart anguishes to find the answer, though she figures a few more times in his bed won't hurt, before she tells him the truth, right?

In a Stranger's Bed features: