I have a severe love/hate relationship with this book. I love it immensely, yet I hate it so ostensibly. I love the main characters, and I despised them with every fiber of my being. I suppose, in a way, this book was a success because whether or not I loved the characters or hated them, it still garnered some sort of reaction out of me. A Groom of One's Own tells the story of Sophie Harlow; a woman whose wedding day had been ruined by her own fiancee when he stopped her halfway up the aisle to the altar, to tell her that he was in love with someone else and that he couldn't marry her. Why this man idiotically chose the day of their wedding and in front of an entire church filled with people to tell her this is beyond me. Humiliated and heartbroken, Sophie disappears into London with her friend and becomes employed at a newspaper - where, ironically enough, she writes about weddings and attends them so she can describe what the rest of the world doesn't get a chance to see. 
 She ends up getting a job writing about the most 'important' wedding of the year: The Duke of Hamilton and Brandon's to the daughter of the Duke of Richmond. Little does she know that she's already met the soon-to-be-married Duke, and that she'd already imagined herself half in love with him. Surprise, surprise when she looks up to see him walking in for their introduction and first interview. 
 My problems with this book is that Sophie - for all her reasons and such to never want another woman to ever go through what she herself went through just a year earlier at her own wedding, seems to have no problem falling for an engaged man and not only flirts with him in front of his fiancee and their mothers, but also spends half the time she's not in his presence, secretly wishing he'd leave his fiancee for her. Nevermind that Sophie and the girl in question get along fairly well. And trust me - she's not the only one dangling off a hook here. Brandon (or Henry, whatever he calls himself) is just as guilty. 
 He clarifies throughout the book that Clarissa would make the perfect duchess, and that even though they aren't in love, they'd at least be good friends and a good friendship is a better state to be married in than most marriages in that day and age were. Instead, the moment he meets Sophie, he's everything that he never said he would be. Like her, he flirts in front of his fiancee and their mothers, he sneaks away with her as often as possible so they could have moments alone, he thinks about her constantly and wishes that he were in a better position to marry her instead. Neither one of them consider the other girl's feelings, which I find appalling. The only thing that kept me from truly hating these two was that Clarissa found her own happy ending. 
 There's just so much inconsideration and sneaky things happening in this book. A lot of thoughtless actions that made me cringe. It's great writing however, and I DID enjoy the book. I just would have enjoyed it more if there was a bit more of a moral sense in the book. Which, I know - sounds boring, but the lack of conscience was disturbing.