Reviewer: Kate
I received a copy of The Reluctant Bride by Beverley Eikli in exchange for an honest review.
Synopsis:
Emily Micklen has no option after the death of her loving fiancé, Jack, but to marry the scarred, taciturn, soldier who represents her only escape from destitution.
Major Angus McCartney is tormented by the reproachful slate-grey eyes of two strikingly similar women: Jessamine, his dead mistress, and Emily, the unobtainable beauty who is now his reluctant bride.
Emily’s loyalty to Jack’s memory is matched only by Angus’s determination to atone for the past and win his wife with honor and action. As Napoleon cuts a swathe across Europe, Angus is sent to France on a mission of national security, forcing Emily to confront both her allegiance to Jack and her traitorous half-French family.
Angus and Emily may find love, but will the secrets they uncover divide them forever?
Review:
So Ms. Eikli has won the Choc Lit Search for an Australian Star competition with The Reluctant Bride; was shortlisted for the 2012 Australian Romance Readers Award for her novel Rake’s Honour and was the finalist in the 2011 Australian Romance Readers Awards for her novel A Little Deception. These honors are no small feat. But I have to admit the improbable web that Eikli weaves in The Reluctant Bride is just a bit too convoluted for this reader. Having said that I gobbled up this romance in two days flat. While I actively scoffed at some of the too neat plot devices, I also couldn’t put the book down. I needed to know what the next crazy turn would be. And there were many.
The widowed fiancé turned scorned woman protagonist Emily is at turns taciturn and childish, then wise and daring. Her complexity and contradiction makes it easy to stay interested in the character. Eikli hits just the right balance, never allowing Emily to become too maudlin or overbearing.
Then the ever serious Angus, who anguishes over delivering news of Jack’s demise to dear Emily. He is the strong silent type, who really when you get to know him isn’t at all what he first seemed. Every bit the kind of man I swoon over, Angus is a super hunk. The man who can look fabulous in a suit or in his boxers. An able man—able to chop wood and to caress your skin to perfection, and to make you laugh at the most unexpected moment. Angus is a man after my own heart.
Last, the families! Oh, the families. If you think yours is dysfunctional just wait until you get into this twisted and sick family tree. I won’t spoil it for you. Needless to say many of these relatives made me quite grateful for my odd uncle and crazy aunt.
For me, The Reluctant Bride wasn’t the best book I’ve read this year—but it certainly will be one of the most memorable. So, it’s a toss up. If you aren’t the type who can suspend disbelief and just go with the absolutely improbable flow, I’d say this probably isn’t the book for you. But if you can shut down those barriers of disbelief, this is a fun romp. Angus alone is worth saying, “To hell with sense.”
