The marriage-of-convenience trope is beloved by historical romance readers. Circumstances draw two people together, usually as a way to fit into society’s norms, and encourage the reluctant couple to spend more time together, get to know one another, and ultimately fall in love.
This list has different kinds of marriage-of-convenience romances, perfect for readers looking to broaden their love of the trope. There’s a Regency romance set between England and India, where a woman reluctantly enters into an arranged marriage as a way to find her mother back in India. One is a Canadian-set romance, where a servant marries a gentleman to help raise his daughter during a tumultuous time. Another servant rises above her station to marry a marquess, each using the marriage for their own advantage. And lastly, a woman answers an ad for a mail-order bride to escape a lonely town and find adventure out West.
Browse these sweet romances and find one to add to your shelves today!
If you’re participating in the Crazy4Fiction Reading Challenge, pick one of these books to fulfill the marriage of convenience romance prompt!
The Light of Stars
By Jenelle Hovde
When Kitty Grenville’s grandfather announces her engagement to Sebastian Sinclair, she’s appalled. She barely remembers the boy she met once as a child—and now he’s a man tied to the East India Company, the very organization that tore Kitty and her brother from their mother and home in Hyderabad years ago.
As Kitty navigates her first London season, her opinion of Sebastian begins to shift, especially when he shields her from scandal. When he’s abruptly called back to India, Kitty stuns everyone by marrying him and going with him, hoping to escape her grandfather’s control—and to find her mother.
The Lawyer and the Laundress
By Christine Hill Suntz
Widower James Kinney knows his precocious daughter, Evie, needs more than his lessons on law and logic, and Toronto offers few options. But when Evie falls victim to the illness ravaging the city, James must call upon Sara O’Connor, a kind and mysteriously educated servant whose medical knowledge and special bond with Evie could save his daughter’s life.
As Sara’s presence in his household threatens scandal, however, James offers an unexpected solution: become his wife, in name only, and help him raise Evie to be a proper young lady.
The Bachelor’s Bargain
By Catherine Palmer
Housemaid Anne Webster will stop at nothing to save her family from their dire circumstances. Even if it means accepting the unexpected proposal of the roguish Ruel, Marquess of Blackthorne, who just returned to England from the Americas under a veil of mystery. Both have their own agenda—she to use his riches and he to use her lace-making skills—but neither could have dreamed what they would discover on the other side of their scheming.
He’s handsome and arrogant; she’s smart and obstinate. But can Anne and Ruel put their differences aside to fend off an unexpected foe?
Faith
By Lori Copeland
In the late 1800s, with the matrimonial prospects in her little Michigan town virtually nonexistent, nineteen-year-old Faith answers an ad for mail-order brides.
But from the moment she arrives in Deliverance, Texas, sparks fly between Faith, a strong-willed tomboy, and her prospective husband, Nicholas Shepherd —a man with a strong will of his own!
Despite a string of wedding postponements and a slew of interferences, Faith and Nicholas are beginning to care for each other—but is their matching stubbornness destined to forever be a barrier between them?
