Captured by the Viscount by Wareeze Woodson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Captured by the Viscount by Wareeze Woodson is an historical romance full of mystery, drama, danger, plots, hidden agendas, and jealousy- with a coerced into marriage element.
As with the other book of Ms. Woodson’s that I have read, this historical romance is written in the ‘old school style’- keeping true to the language, terminology, social norms, and style of the era. Having read her work before, I knew what to expect, so it didn’t take too long for me to settle into the flow of the story.
Lady Isabel Carlyle had high hopes of returning the Viscounts stolen property and at the same time collect her own stolen jewels. Little did she suspect that she would be caught red-handed with the bonds in her possession still, making her look like a thief in the night. After all, the Viscount wasn’t even meant to be in residence. He was supposed to be away at his country estate. But fate had other ideas, and so Isabel finds herself on the wrong end of a gun with an angry Viscount to contend with. How was she going to get out of this mess?
Viscount Matthew Rutherford caught the little thief in the act of stealing from him. He should turn her over to the authorities- but then he is in dire need of a bride to wed before the month has ended. There is a lot at stake. So, he gives Isabel a choice- marriage or jail. It’s not the best choice, but she really doesn’t want to end up in jail. Then there’s an added element of danger as someone seems to want Isabel dead. The fact that Matt has had two previous ‘fiancées’ die from strange ‘accidents’ right before the wedding, is now seen as sinister and the game of cat-and-mouse adds extra tension and suspense to the story. What happens next makes for an entertaining read.
While I did enjoy the story- there were some issues for me that caused some frustration. Again, there were a few contradictions in the story, where the character feels/says something so strongly one moment and then the next moment they are saying/doing the complete opposite. It just made some moments seem more contrived, added for convenience or added drama. I also noted that there was repeated information as we ‘see’ things happening with one character, and then experience it again with the other MC as the POV changes. There were other inconsistencies such as descriptions changing as we go from one POV to the other- such as one character checking a table setting and giving us a description, and then the POV changes and we get a slightly different description from the other MC. Then there was character name changes during the story. Although these issues didn’t detract too much from my enjoyment of the story, they did give me pause and had me flipping back over sections that I had already read to clarify things- I do feel that these issues should probably have been picked up during editing, or through a beta-read.
This hasn’t put me off reading more of Ms. Woodson’s work, and I am curious to see what I comes next.

Thank you, Wareeze Woodson!

Reviewed by @angelahayes

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