A Tryst By the Sea

A Tryst By the Sea

A Siren's Retreat Quartet #1

by Grace Burrows

Vergilius, Viscount Summerton, has watched his wife grow more and more distant, and he’s determined that, this year, the marriage will start moving in a better direction. Penelope, Lady Summerton, is also determined that this year will be different. She slips off to a seaside cottage, intending that to be her first step toward a new life free of marital difficulties. Gill ends up at the same seaside inn, where he hopes to plot a wooing no wife can resist.

He’s determined to reconcile; she’s determined to pack his bags, but then, the magic of the Siren’s Retreat begins to steal over them both...

The Plot

Oh boy, this was a hard book to read; it was sad and, personally, very relatable. Penelope and Vergilius spent a better part of nine years not communicating at all. I really wished that one of them would have seen reason. Nine years seems like such a long time to suffer with what they went through and with his family.

No. I have other regrets—I wish the baby had lived. I wish we hadn’t been so young when we married. I wish… many things, but I have never regretted being your husband.” And that, to his surprise, was true. He and Penelope had grown apart, but he esteemed her, desired her, and in some stubborn way, he loved her. She had been through the fires of sorrow and loss with him as nobody else had been, and that… that mattered.

The Heroine

Penelope broke my heart. I can’t imagine being a new bride, dealing with overbearing in laws, a husband having new responsibilities thrust upon him, and suffering the death of a child. I was hoping she would have seen reason before he left the cottage, but it was even sweeter when she was finally able to read his letters. I wish she would have spoken up more for herself to him and his family.

The Hero

Vergilius broke my heart too! He lost his child and his dad shortly after, thus inheriting a TON of responsibilities. I only wish he had been more assertive with getting Penelope to come to him instead of just waiting for letters from her. It felt like he had Penelope on a pedestal and loved her from a distance, when she had no idea of his feelings or his admiration for her. 

For the next week, he would be the most charming, endearing, pleasant, soon-to-be-rejected husband in the history of husbands, and if luck was with him, Penelope would rethink this infernal annulment. He’d tried being patient. He’d tried allowing her to come to terms with her disappointment in private. He’d tried soldiering on. To blazes with all of that. The time had come to woo his wife, and the stakes could not be higher.

The Steam

This more of a heartbreaker than a love maker, but there was one scene which was just so so special.

Stand Out Moment

There were so many sweet moments between Penelope and Vergilius while they try to rekindle there marriage.

Tropes

Low Steam, Historical Romance, Titled Hero, Damaged Heroine, Politician, Miscarriage/Death of a Child, Angst Romance, Second Chance Romance