REVIEW: The Replacement Husband (book) by Eliot Grayson

The Replacement Husband is m/m fantasy romance with historicalish elements. I bought my copy new.

Review:

This is set in a Regency-ish fantasy world in which people known as "goddess-blessed" exist. As far as I could tell, the goddess-blessed were men who were 1) gay, 2) required to marry other men, and 3) would magically bring good fortune to whichever man they married.

Owen is one of the goddess-blessed. After hitting his head and being carried home by Arthur (although Arthur's brother Tom convinces Owen he was the one who did it), Owen meets his saviors and instantly falls for Tom's charm and nonthreatening good looks. Tom proposes, Owen accepts, and then Tom turns out to be a cad. Owen, facing the prospect of ridicule and damage to his reputation, reluctantly agrees to Arthur's offer to marry him instead, unaware that Arthur has been nursing a crush on him since they first met.

I came across this while looking for romance recommendations in which one half of the pair spends at least some time pining for the other. Arthur's pining moments were lovely, exactly what I wanted.

Unfortunately, the world-building was really vague and shaky. There weren't a lot of details about what the goddess-blessed actually were and how all of that worked. It seemed like the author just shoved this magical system in a vaguely Regency world and called it good without really thinking it all through. The concerns about Owen's reputation after all the stuff with Tom, for example, didn't really make sense in a world where simply marrying someone like Owen could give someone good fortune in their business pursuits. Surely there would still be plenty of people practically falling over themselves for a marriage with automatic benefits like that. 

I also wasn't sure if the whole goddess-blessed thing meant that men could only marry other men if one of them was goddess-blessed. Then there was the question of women. There was no mention of goddess-blessed women, but it seemed possible they could exist. Did goddess-blessed women marry other women, or did only men get the benefits of marrying someone goddess-blessed?

I liked reading about Owen learning to trust Arthur and believe that he was a better person than his brother. It was also nice that Owen had something of his own to contribute to their marriage that wasn't just his goddess-blessed status - he'd learned a few things about business and the law from being a solicitor's son, and there were aspects to the work that he was good at and enjoyed that Arthur did not and was therefore happy to have his husband take on instead.

All in all, this was an enjoyable read, despite the issues with the world-building. I have no plans to read the second book, however - it quite frankly grosses me out that Tom is one of the main characters in that one. Not everyone deserves an HEA, and nothing about the events of this book made me want one for that character.