Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of The Trouble With Harry (Noble, Bk 3)

The Trouble With Harry (Noble, Bk 3)
The Trouble With Harry (Noble, Bk 3)
Author: Katie MacAlister
Genre: Romance
Book Type: Mass Market Paperback
reviewed on + 12 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3


This was a cute story with some very funny spots. Probably would've been a 4 star except the ending was horrible. Actually not so much that the ending was horrible as there was no wrap up, and the story ends abruptly without an explanation or conclusion. There is an epilogue chapter but she doesn't explain how it got from the end to the epilogue.

OK, so this is a story of a gentle lady, Plum, who married, unknowingly, a man who was already married. She ends up suffering being shunned by society and lives a reclusive life as a writer. She writes under a pseudonym, a controversial book on sexual positions and acts. Although it is very popular, it is banned in many places and stops making an income for her. She is now the guardian of her teenage (adult) niece, at the end of her fertility, and penniless.

Harry is a widow and father, of 5 very rambunctious kids. The kids are out of control (can someone say nanny McPhee?) and he decides that he needs to remarry because he needs a wife. In order not to attract money/title seekers, he writes an advert in the local farmers paper. He states he needs a wife, he can support financially, and she must like children, she should be between age 35-50.

During the interviews, none but Plum, fit his qualifications, and on the plus there is an immediate attraction. He fails to tell her that he is titled, has 5 kids that are out of hand, or that he has a past as a spy which has caught up with him. She doesn't admit that her first husband, thought to be dead, but shows up later, was a bigamist, or that she is a controversial writer.

Although she is immediately taken with the kids, the kids are not so charmed with her. She tries to include and become a part of their life but they fight her at every turn.

Harry is called to London and she must face her past marriage and the scandal, which Harry says won't be a problem. Still she worries. In London, her ex-husband?, shows up and tries to blackmail her with her secret identity of the writer. Accidents keep happening and it starts to be obvious that they are not 'accidents'. Harry is looking into his spying past and all wonder if this has to do with the 'accidents'.

Things start to wrap up, and right when you find who the "bad" guy is, the story is over. What happens to him? What happens to everything else? No we go to over a half year later and everything is hunky dory and what a great family life! Argh!

I have read MacAlister's dragon books and she seems to not end those either but at least you get an explanation of how you get from one point to the next. Yes, she leave a lot of holes unfilled, but they get answered in the next book and more question are left to be answered. I thought it was a series thing, but this is the end, yet there is no answer to what happens. Obviously everything turns out in the end.

Well because I felt I missed at least one if not 2 chapters between Chapter 17 and the Epilogue, I can only give this a 3 star and not recommend it to anyone I know. If you like just an answer to the mystery but not a wrap up on the romance, then this is the book for you. There are some funny scenes.