Marrying Out Of Money

By Nicky Schmidt

"Marrying out of Money" is the story of a coffee shop heiress who is determined not to marry an aristocratic cad in an arranged marriage. In order to extricate herself, she decides to make herself as undesirable as possible, but things go awry when she finds herself falling for a man who repulses her.

This novel is brimming with great characters. I loved the main character of Lou, but the supporting cast were great too.

I particularly liked Fin who is Lou’s likeable but secretly vulnerable best friend and there are some amusingly ghastly characters including Lou’s mother, Victoria, and Lou’s boyfriend Hedge (or Bush as Victoria insists on referring to him).

The story follows Lou as she tries to resists her mother’s attempts to marry her off to an aristocrat in the interests of social acceptability, and the equally persistent attempts of his mother who is just as keen to make the match for financial reasons. The plot is full of twists and turns, and whilst it is a romance on the surface, there are also plenty of intriguing sub plots which throw disaster in Lou’s path on a regular basis.

I love the humour of this book. The comic moments come thick and fast and help to give pace to the plot as it covers the machinations of the dysfunctional characters. But there are some deeper, more emotional moments as well, particularly in the plot line involving the magnificent Fin.

Overall I would recommend this as a highly enjoyable and entertaining read. It caught me up in its unlikely but agreeable world and had me turning the pages to the end.

Reviewed by Helen Hunt

‘Marrying Out Of Money’ is published by Prospera Publishing, who kindly provided a review copy, and the paperback is out now.