Makeshift Marriage is a marriage of convenience between a loving, pseudo-doormat heroine and a too-stupid-to-live hero that veers off into I-want-to-dump-you, family pressure, Hong Kong, drug dealers, hair salon, Other Man and Other Woman. It is an odd romance that I had to squint and look sideways at to believe completely.
Plot Synopsis – Click to Avoid Spoilers
Makeshift Marriage opens with our heroine, Maggie, summoned to the big chief’s (aka the hero’s father’s) office for the chief to grill her on his son’s romance with Fiona, a red-haired manipulative, unfaithful bitch of an Other Woman. Seems sonny Blake has been dating Fiona extensively but his dad and the board of their construction/engineering company has serious reservations about Fiona and her sleazy connections to some drug dealers. Dad states he won’t approve Blake’s position as boss of a new development in Hong Kong if he marries Fiona.
Maggie and Blake are both engineers and Maggie works for him; Blake relies on her very much. He is supposedly brilliant, Maggie less so but more in tune with nitty gritty as one must be in the engineering world. They make a great pair and Blake is devastated when Maggie declines his offer to come to Hong Kong with him.
Maggie loves Blake; he is not indifferent to her, knows she’s pretty, is attracted to her, likes her very much, trusts and relies on her, his feelings are very close to love but he puts it off when he thinks Maggie isn’t interested. She’s managed to hide her feelings too well.
Maggie has weathered several Blake girlfriends before Fiona but it’s obvious Fiona is different, Blake is smitten. Fiona puts on a good show of sweet, slightly helpless which ensnares Blake; Maggie sees through the act to the cold, hard steel inside. Blake invites both ladies to dinner (he’s clueless) where Fiona gushes over how smart Maggie must be, etc., etc., thus defusing any romantic thought Blake might have about her.
Finally we’re about a month from the Hong Kong adventure when Fiona marries the race car driver she’s been dating in between Blake. Blake is devastated, gets drunk, Maggie helps him home, covers up his drunkenness. He asks Maggie to marry him since he needs a wife and he really doesn’t want to go to Hong Kong without her. (Clueless as noted.)
Of course Maggie agrees and her family is happy and excited. The day before the wedding Blake calls to meet her away from her home. Fiona’s husband died in a car accident and the poor girl is heartbroken and of course Blake can’t possibly marry Maggie now that Fiona is free. (Can we say STUPID???) He wants Maggie to jilt him by not showing up at church the next day. He can’t do it because his dad would be mad (and what about Maggie’s family and their happiness and expense?) nor is he willing to marry and then annul/divorce in a month because that would look bad too. Nope, Maggie has to do the dirty work. She is very unhappy and extremely reluctant but as usual agrees to what Blake wants.
That night she just cannot face the situation and goes to London to meet Blake, to tell him he has to tell his Dad the wedding is off, then she’ll tell her family. Blake isn’t home but Fiona is in his apartment and is quite open with Maggie about how she has no intention to go to Hong Kong, that she’ll divert Blake, that she is stone broke and needs Blake’s money. Maggie is appalled. She’s in a hard spot now.
If Maggie allows Blake to dump her and go off with Fiona his career is over despite being the boss’s son. Further Fiona is not welcome in Hong Kong and Maggie knows Blake will eventually realize what poison Fiona is. She’s finally angry now. Blake is always expecting her to pick up after him and she’s tired of it, tired of being the bad guy, doing his dirty work. Plus she wants to marry Blake and is pretty sure they could be happy together.
Maggie shows up at her wedding. Blake marries her then launches a tirade in the car afterwards, calls her nasty names, yells and has a tantrum that she did not do as he wanted. But he’ll show her! Blake takes her to Hong Kong, dumps her in a hotel room, asks a friend to take her around and goes back to London to sweet Fiona. (At this point we readers wonder what planet Blake lives on. What does he think will happen with Fiona? That he can bring her to Hong Kong as his mistress, leave his wife – a respected fellow employee – in an apartment and ignore her and still have the project workers respect him??)
Blake’s friend Nick, shows Maggie over Hong Kong. They had dated before; Maggie liked Nick a lot and he is the Other Man, half in love with her. A coworker sees Nick comfort Maggie and spreads vile rumors they are having an affair, which brings Blake hot foot back to Hong Kong.
This time he’s scared he might lose Maggie and is angry about the rumors, they sleep together. He meant it brutal force but Maggie, in love with him, gives herself with joy and Blake discovers she was a virgin.
Cranky Blake ignores Maggie, stays out all night, refuses to have her work with him and she follows up on a tentative friendship with the lovely Ling Sang who is opening a beauty parlor. Maggie helps her set up the salon and is her first customer.
She gets all dolled up for Ling Sang’s grand opening fancy party to which Blake agreed to go with her. He comes late and stays only long enough to tell Maggie she looks nice and he’s sorry, something came up and he can’t stay.
Maggie sees Blake with Fiona and decides she’s had enough. She gets Nick to get her a flight home and goes to her sister in law’s Scotland home. She discovers she’s pregnant. Blake shows up and confesses all. When he went back to London the first time he found Fiona in his bed in his apartment with another guy. He had a heart to heart with his dad, learned that Maggie had known Fiona was unwelcome and Blake would have destroyed his career had he kept her. Meanwhile he missed Maggie, missed talking to her, spending time together, all the things he had thrown away.
Blake met up with Fiona in Hong Kong because she had chased after him, was arrested in connection with another drug dealer guy and she needed his help to clear her name. Supposedly he’s done with Fiona and will devote himself to Maggie. I love you and Happy Ever After.
Can We Believe Blake?
The entire premise of the Makeshift Marriage happy ever after is Blake loves Maggie and will remain faithful and loving in the future. Do we readers believe he is sincere and that he will keep his promises and continue his sincerity in the future?
I find Blake sincere at the story close. I’m not convinced he will stay sincere, that he will remain loving and faithful (emotionally and physically) to Maggie; the odds are 50/50 or 60/40 that his turnaround will last. I give such low odds of future fidelity and happiness because:
- Author Lewty tells us Blake had never fallen for anyone before Fiona. He fell for her hard.
- Even after seeing her in bed with someone else Blake puts Fiona’s need ahead of Maggie’s clear, strong desire for him to come to Ling Sang’s party. One could argue a legal problem trumps a party, but this is a big deal for Maggie, she spent a lot of time and expense making herself beautiful and Blake knew it was important to her.
- Fiona had come to Hong Kong to get Blake back, yet we’re supposed to believe he helps her out of kindness and wants to get her out of their lives.
- Blake takes Maggie for granted. He assumes Maggie would stop the wedding, would understand even his choice to help Fiona vs. go with Maggie. This attitude is hard to change.
- He claims he wants to make love to Maggie, that he missed her, that he wants their baby. Even Maggie has to stifle her doubts and she does mostly because she loves Blake.
I’m not sure Fiona herself will continue to be a problem, but it is strongly possible that Blake will keep finding other Fionas – ladies who appear delicate and needy and lovely and soft – a complete opposite from his strong, intelligent, capable wife. Blake shows he is susceptible to that sort of person.
Their future happiness depends on Maggie gently steering Blake, giving her strength to him. She becomes less understanding and less willing to accept his lack of character through the novel, first when she refuses to do his dirty work and jilt him, then when she makes herself enjoy Hong Kong with Nick, and last when she walks away after he chooses to help Fiona vs. keeping his promise to go to the party. She’s beginning to hold Blake accountable to get himself right, not rely on her, but I think she will always have to be the strong one in their marriage.
Overall
I like Makeshift Marriage. Author Lewty developed Maggie into a believable, realistic character and contrasted her strength to Blake’s supposed brilliance that devolved to stupidity and cluelessness. It would be easy to see Maggie as a doormat, in fact she sees herself that way in the beginning. We see her grow and take ownership for herself and forces Blake to take responsibility for himself as the book progresses.
Maggie’s main flaw is she will do anything for Blake, she’s his to command. She confronts that flaw when she decides to go ahead with the marriage, when she is alone in Hong Kong, when she gives herself to Blake in bed, when she dumps him even though pregnant. By the end of the book she’ll still do many things for Blake but she is done with lying for him, hiding his problems, taking the blame for his actions.
Most of the reviewers on Goodreads find the happy ever after unbelievable, don’t like Blake, and think Maggie is a doormat. Agree on Blake; he is an immature jerk who needs to grow up. I disagree about Maggie. She starts as a doormat but gets tired of having Blake wipe his feet on her and will not allow him to do so any more.
4 Stars
I got my paperback copy of Makeshift Marriage on Thriftbooks, it was not available on Archive.org at the time I read it nor is it available in E format from Harlequin, Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Amazon has paperback copies and you can probably find this on eBay and other used book sites.
All Amazon links are ads that pay the reviewer a small commission.
Leave a Reply