Books like Gentle Conquest

This book supposedly had no cheating in it.And that is true,…in a way.It was a book about a silly young girl that hides behind her loud personality and a inexperienced 20 something man that fears women.It was to be very cute book, almost light in it’s seriousness, and exploration of young love.But somehow, it left me with a bad taste in my mouth.Following a series of silly fights and wrongly finished personal encounters the hero has no idea what to do with the heroine, whom he is in love with.His cousin who dribbles in the middle of this by his connections to the hero, friendship with the heroine and courtship with the heroine’s sister decides to help everybody by arranging a mistress for the hero. The hero is appalled by the little dancer but after a big fight with his wife in which she calls him incompetent he decides to embark on an affair.The cousin lets all of this slip to the heroine who decides to take the place of the mistress, and become her husband’s lover.Very…complicated. And a bit over the top, was it not?This could have been a nice story about understanding without this silly (to not say stupid) plot device.The hero has sex with her, and likes her body.How nice for him, eh?He goes of to his home thinking how he loves his wife bog -Oh,Gods!- he does not feel guilty.A bit creepy, is it not?I know it is not considered cheating because it was really the heroine with a veil over her face but still…sheeesh.The hero and heroine continue to be lovers.The author tries very hard to make us believe that the hero would have never cared for the real Miss Shaw aka the little dancer that was to be his mistress in the first place. We have the scene where he is in the theatre again and has the creeps form the real Miss Shaw that smiles at him shark like. We read about him thinking that he likes , maybe loves his mistress because she cuddles with him at night. Sometimes he imagines his wife. Sometime he thinks about loving both women but is not sure how. Sometimes even I am confused when reading about the way his mind works.There are many misunderstanding about their affair between other members of their family and all of this results in a big mess where the hero confesses all, tells his wife that he wants their marriage to work ,that he will leave his mistress and that he would claim her child even thou he know she had a lover.And yeee Gods the lover was him! And it is his kid!What a happy ever after!Not so much in my book.I guess the ending did satisfy me, and I could see them as happy in the future. Sure. That much was all right.But the fact that he did not know that that was her under the veil, that he fancied himself in love with two women , even thou he did not understand what his body knew (that they were one and the same) it all puts a permanent dumper on their first time and generally on all their lovemaking. It just seems wrong for him to enjoy all that without knowing it was her. And in my eyes, that way, enjoying it all with somebody else! The hero was a very spineless beta hero (lets be real, he is sensitive and shy but mostly he is juts very dull) and I felt really sick to my teeth by his actions. By him not wanting to leave his ‘mistress’. By his need to have sex twice all the time. By all that he shared with the mistress. I know I was supposed to magically transfer all this in to the ‘nice and good’ section as soon as he realized what his wife was telling him-that she was his mistress and he her lover. I know I was supposed to fall at his feet because he loved her enough to keep another mans child even with the option that it would be his successor if it was a son. But just… I don’t know! Maybe I am just strange. But the whole thing bugged me to no ends. The fact that she was the mistress under the veil does not make any of his actions right. Again the author tries to make us see all this in a different light trough the heroine-she states that she is in love with the husband she has at home but she also loves her lover that is a different person. But she knows it’s him! She knows, ok!!!? He does not! At that, my friends, makes him a sleazebag.Also we have a very stupid romance between Vera and Roger that seems to have the sole purpose to tie up all the characters in this play in their very own happy endings. Roger is the person that wanted the opera dancer in the first place. So how was he in love with Vera five pages later and is openly telling her he would never have any other women if she marries him? So very…confusing. This whole book is so twisted in little circles that I felt like having a epileptic seizure after reading it. It’s not that it was a badly written thing. It still had the charm all the novels from this author have. But it was missing something. Maybe it was just some sense.