Love Only Once

Title: Love Only Once (1985)
Author: Johanna Lindsey (Avon)
Period: European Historical-Regency (1817 England)
Grade: B-

Vintage Johanna Lindsey is my romance novel kryptonite. She has a routine formula of alpha hero + minimal character development + abduction plot + secret pregnancy = true love. I don’t know why, but it works for me. Maybe I just expect less in terms of plot and storytelling from 1980s romance. Maybe it is because I love old-school bodice ripper covers. Whatever the case, provided the she avoids the rape and forced sex of her earliest book, I can almost always enjoy a Johanna Lindsey. Love Only Once is happily no exception to that formula.

Nicholas Eden, a handsome rogue of a Viscount with some mommy issues, accidentally abduct orphaned beauty Regina Ashton one evening. He drunkenly mistakes her for a former mistress whose coach Regina has borrowed. They are, of course, immediately in lust. The word of her brief abduction quickly makes the round of Ton gossips and Regina’s powerful Mallory family fears she is near ruin. Regina’s uncle would like to arrange a dawn appointment, however Regina believes her near ruin perfectly fit with her current scheme to have her over protective uncles pick her husband. She insists that Nicholas is a perfect candidate and her uncles reluctantly force his hand. The Viscount, like many a romance novel hero, plans never to marry. In Nicholas’s case it is because he believes any society wife will shun him when she discovers his Big Family Secret. Nicholas treats Regina shabbily during their engagement period in the hopes she will cry off, excluding one night of gazebo nookie. He flees the country after their wedding in desperation.

Lindsey adds a half-cocked shipping/pirate plot that isn’t fully fleshed out to establish a back-story (however fleeting) between Nicholas and Regina’s uncle, James. When Nicholas does return to England he is forced to confront his unresolved family issues while attempting to win back the love and good graces of his wife and unknown son. Regina doesn’t give a fig about Nicholas’s Big Family Secret and is happy to reconcile all the parties involved. Nicholas has been an ass to Regina and thus offers her a heartfelt, if confused, apology for his behavior. Too many romance authors believe that a confession of love is enough to excuse poor behavior. The affective use of an apology along with Lindsey’s charming cast of characters makes the predictability of Love Only Once an asset rather than a detriment.