One of my very favorite tropes is the marriage of convenience love story. It’s a common one in romance, perhaps more so in historicals–we have 85 books tagged as such here and I’m sure we’ve missed a bunch. My favorites, off the top of my head, are Ravishing the Heiress and (loosely) Dukes are Forever. (I cannot believe the first isn’t a DIK.)
What are your favorite MOC romances?
Also, as I was thinking about this, I wondered how ChatGPT would define the term. But I wasn’t clear enough in my first question. The AI thought I was asking for it to WRITE a MOC story. So it did. I share it here. It’s… something.
In a world where love and convenience collide, welcome to the wacky universe of the “Marriage of Convenience” trope! It’s like ordering a pizza for dinner but ending up with a lifetime of commitment instead. Brace yourself for a rollercoaster ride of unexpected hilarity as two people decide to tie the knot without any emotional entanglements.
Meet our protagonists, Alice and Bob, two strangers thrown together by a series of bizarre circumstances. Alice, a free-spirited artist, needs a green card to stay in the country, while Bob, a workaholic accountant, desperately wants to inherit his eccentric aunt’s fortune. Fate, with its twisted sense of humor, introduces them at a speed-dating event for the romantically challenged.
They start off as the ultimate odd couple. Alice’s idea of a romantic gesture is painting portraits of Bob snoring during their sleepless nights, while Bob can’t comprehend why anyone would need more than one color in their life. Their wedding ceremony becomes a theatrical spectacle, with Alice’s paintings as decorations and Bob calculating the cost of each flower petal.
From the moment they exchange vows, their lives become a never-ending sitcom episode. Alice fills the house with her whimsical art installations, which Bob insists on labeling and categorizing like an overzealous librarian. Every morning begins with an absurd routine where Alice attempts to inject some creativity into Bob’s accounting spreadsheets, leading to equations like “1 + 1 = an existential crisis.”
As the days pass, they find themselves trapped in comical situations. Picture Bob trying to impress Alice by baking a cake from scratch, only to end up summoning the fire department. Meanwhile, Alice attempts to teach Bob the meaning of spontaneity by introducing him to interpretive dance classes, causing him to move with all the grace of a wounded walrus.
Of course, no marriage of convenience is complete without the meddling of well-meaning friends and nosy neighbors. They find themselves tangled in a web of misunderstandings, as their relationship is misconstrued by the local gossip mill. Soon, the couple becomes the talk of the town, with rumors ranging from secret spy missions to an underground art heist.
But amidst the chaos, something unexpected begins to blossom—a genuine friendship. Through their shared misadventures, Alice and Bob discover that even though they might have gotten married for all the wrong reasons, they have inadvertently found a partner in crime, an ally against the absurdity of life.
In the end, the marriage of convenience becomes a story of love that sneaks in through the back door, triumphing over logic and absurdity. Alice and Bob realize that while their union may have started as a practical arrangement, it has transformed into something truly special—a reminder that sometimes, love can blossom even in the most unexpected and hilarious ways.
So, fasten your seatbelts and get ready for a ride filled with laughter, mishaps, and a love story that no one saw coming. In the world of “Marriage of Convenience,” the only thing more unpredictable than the plot twists is the unpredictable journey to finding true love in the most ludicrous of circumstances.
