It is very hard to rate this book. The book is extremely well-written; the style of writing and the historical accuracy is superb and deserves a 5 rating. On the other hand, I found this book completely, without any reservation, unromantic. I actually felt very sad for the heroine. She didn't marry Adam for his title; she married him because she knew he would be completely ruined without her dad's proposal. From the very beginning she become a martyr to the cause of making Adam's life comfortable by sacrificing her own happiness and how she was perceived by others. She was considered of inferior intellect by most because of how she diverted the social suicidal of her husband and Julia, and as a result she wasn't accepted as she would have been. She went out of her way to make life easier for Julia and Adam, and what she got back in return was his continual emotional infidelity and his detestation of her and her father. I believe if I didn't like the characters of Mr. Chawleigh or Lydia so much, I would have given up on finishing this book. I grew increasingly impatient with Adam's inability to see beyond Julia's exterior beauty and his allowance of her spoiled, shallow, inconsiderate behavior to continue. He didn't even take her off the saintly pedestal he had put her on after she propositioned him to become her lover and cheat on his pregnant wife and her future husband. Although he was a decent gentleman, I just despised him throughout the book.