Helpful Score: 1
Blaze Wyndham_ tells the story of a young girl growing up in Tudor England. She and her huge family of little sisters have little hope of marriage, since her parents are too poor to dower even one of them, let alone the others. But word of her mother's fecundity has reached widower Edmund Wyndham, whose first wife died in the birth of a stillborn child after fifteen years of barrenness. Edmund needs an heir, and he needs a healthy and fertile wife to get one. He offers to marry Blaze without a dowry, and provide marriage portions to her sisters as well. The young girl objects, but decided to marry him to help her sisters. She soon falls in love with her kind and sexy husband, but she's not so sure about arrogant Anthony, his nephew, with whom she constantly bickers in that way that is shorthand for "Look out! Chemistry ahead!" Mostly comfortable in her new life, Blaze bears a daughter. Unfortunately, Edmund dies, Blaze blames Anthony for the accident that killed him, and Blaze's sister recommends that Blaze go to the royal court for a time to forget her pain. Instead, she gets blackmailed into being Henry VIII's mistress, then is cast aside when he falls for Anne Boleyn. Not wanting to leave Blaze helpless, the King wants to make a good marriage for her--and the perfect candidate is good old Anthony. She still hates him for causing Edmund's accident; he is angry at her for sleeping with the King, but the monarch's word is law, and they marry. The rest of the book tells the story of how these two people learn to get along, clear up all the misunderstandings, and love each other.
