How to Lose a Bride in One Night

How to Lose a Bride in One Night by Sophie Jordan

Annalise Hadley lived in relative obscurity until her father, Jack Hadley, appeared out of nowhere and decided to invest part of his vast fortune toward marrying her, and her numerous half-sisters, off to members of the aristocracy. Annalise knows she is not beautiful and she has suffered a limp since a childhood accident, but she is hard working and kind. She is shocked and flattered when the Duke of Bloodsworth, the most eligible bachelor of the ton, picks her to be his bride but it turns out he only wanted her for her money- a fact she discovers when he tries to smother her and throws her overboard their wedding barge. Owen Crawford, Earl of MacDowell, is stunned to find a half-dead woman floating in the river and immediately takes her to the nearest shelter he can find even if it is a gypsy caravan. Owen has given up on ever being a normal human after living for years as an asassin in India and lives on the outskirts of his own family but something about this young woman draws him in.

When she awakes Annalise claims to have amnesia to avoid Owen bringing her back to Bloodworth and she wants to be up and out of bed as soon as possible as she hates feeling helpless. Owen is determined that she heal properly and appoints himself her nursemaid, even while rejecting the Gypsy's claim that she belongs to him now that he has saved her life. When it is finally time to leave the caravan he takes Annalise to his estate, planning to send her away once she is fully recovered. But when she asks him to teach her how to defend herself he can't help but wonder what secrets she is hiding and finds that he wants to know more about her. Annalise is falling for the handsome man who rescued her and who makes her feel safe for the first time in a long time. With Annalise's help Owen rediscovers the man he used to be and reunites with his family and with Owen's help, Annalise finally finds herself able to confront her past. Together, they know they are safe and can handle anything the world throws at them.

This installment in the Forgotten Princesses series featuring the illegitimate daughters of the wealthy Jack Hadley, neatly avoided falling into the series trap of focusing too much on past characters which I really admired. Sophie writes fun and very readable books that are quickly devoured and her written style is easy and flows nicely. Annalise was a wonderful character; strong and scared, caring and determined. I loved how Jordan portrayed Annalise as a victim of domestic violence who went from fear of the world to a determination to better herself and prevent it from ever happening again. Owen is a tortured hero with a buried past and a problem with connecting with other people. His past is certainly sufficient to creating such a character and I enjoyed reading about him overcoming his own fears and learning to accept himself and his past and looking toward the future. I liked that Owen helped Annalise overcome her fears and she helped him overcome his own, more buried, fears.

I could feel the heat between these two from the beginning, fairly scorching the pages, but unfortunately it ended up being a huge let down and they did not burn up the sheets anywhere near often enough.  I was frustrated towards the end when Annalise naively gave into blackmail from Bloodsworth just because he threatened Owen when she should have known perfectly well that Owen could take care of himself. She'd seen him fight people! It brought my opinion of Annalise down quite a few notches and came across like an attempt to create a big dramatic confrontational ending. The ending was of course everything it should have been and neatly wrapped everything up with a big bow, but I didn't feel like it was completely predictable because there were some added plot twists.

Rating: An enjoyable book that had much promise, but a generic ending and the letdown of going from such scorching flirting to one mild mannered bedding brought this book down.

Lessons From a Scandalous Bride

Lessons from a Scandalous Bride by Sophie Jordan

Cleopatra grew up in poverty watching her mother bear and bury babies year after year because her cruel stepfather could not control himself. She is determined never to subject herself to that sort of life and her opinion does not change when her long lost father shows up and offers her riches beyond imagining. Cleo goes to live with Jack Hadley and he is willing to do anything to ensure his three long lost daughters marry into the peerage. Because of her desire to avoid the marriage bed and childbirth she settles for the aged, and crippled, Lord Thrumgoodie, even though her dowry could attract other men and his own family members believe her a whoring title-hunter. She hopes that once she is married she will have the financial independence to provide for her half-siblings and her mother and save them from her stepfather. Lord Logan McKinney is in London to find himself a heiress so he can use her finds to renovate his crumbling Scottish estate. His sister points him in the direction of Libba, granddaughter of Thrumgoodie, but it is Libba's future step-grandma who catches his attention.

Cleo is beautiful and withdrawn and she pulls at Logan in a way no other woman ever have, but he cannot figure out why she is choosing someone old and entirely unlike herself. Logan is everything that Cleo wishes to avoid; handsome, young, virile, and he draws her far too much for her own good so she does everything she can to avoid being with him and giving into the feelings she has for him. Logan sets out to woo Cleo and convince her that an old man is no match for her lively spirit and finds that the easies way to do this is to seduce her. With no choice left Cleo tells Logan about her childhood and how she shouldered the responsibility of her household and lost so many brother's and sisters, but he knows that running away from her fears is not what Cleo should do. When the two of them are caught in a compromising position he believes he has found his time to help Cleo through her fears and show her that life can be happy when two partners work with each other for their mutual benefit. Cleo must overcome her fears and learn to trust someone else and when she does it will be Logan who is there to help her.

Cleo was strong and responsible and scared and flawed and I loved that it was the heroine who had a haunted past that scared her from marriage instead of the hero. Her fear of becoming pregnant and having her babies die was a very scary reality that women faced in those days and I can really see why someone would be incredibly scared of that, especially because of her experiences. It was a much more realistic reason to be scared of marriage than the half-assed explanations heroes use in most romance novels. Logan was very self aware and confident and he went after what he wanted. I really liked Logan because he wasn't scared of his feelings for Cleo and treated her well while he was pursuing her without coddling her fears. He didn't apologize for being a fortune hunter because he knew he was doing what was best for his family and his estate, but he didn't allow himself to feel guilty for what he was doing. I loved Logan and Cleo together because they were each strong where the other wasn't so strong and they complimented each other in that sense.

They spent a lot of time together and they had a lot of opportunities to explore each other's pasts and learn about the other and once they got to his estate it was easy to see how well they worked together and how their future would play out. There was a super strong attraction between these two and they had tremendous difficulty keeping their hands off each other even though Cleo was desperately trying to fight it. There was not a lot of sex and it was all in the second half of the book and much of it was cut short, but their was just a sense of lust throughout the book so it felt like the book was far sexier than it actually was. I really enjoyed this book because there was no side plot or murder or anything of that nature, but because these two each had such a well developed history there was still a lot going on in this book and it never felt lacking. The writing was as fast and fun as Jordan always is and the novel flowed very naturally and was very well written.

Rating: A wonderful book with two very enjoyable characters with a very strong relationship in a novel that was a joy to read.

Wicked in Your Arms

Wicked in Your Arms by Sophie Jordan 731

Grier Hadley is the bastard daughter of the very rich Jack Hadley, and after years of neglect Jack decides that his illegitimate daughters are the way into polite society. He launches them with the help of the Dowager Duchess of Bolingbroke, whose titled family is completely broke, and hopes that one of the very wealthy, if not completely acceptable girls, will marry her younger son. But Grier and her sister Cleo are not welcomed with open arms and people talk about them and their father openly. But when Grier overhears Sevastian, the future King of Maldonia, completely dismiss her as a possibility for a wife she sees red and causes a scene. Sevastian knows his duty is to find a respectable and very wealthy to bring back to his kingdom, which is nearly bankrupt after a ten year long war that claimed that lives of most of Sevastian's family. He cannot get the completely inappropriate, the boisterous, the beautiful Grier out of his head even while he is trying to go about his duty of finding a wife, with the help of his cousin, Malcolm, whose family was banished from Maldonia years ago.

A house party throws them together in close proximity and both hope to continue their search for a spouse, even while they cannot seem to avoid thinking about the other. Grier finds Sevastian attraction, but she regards him as spoiled and selfish, just like all the other members of the ton who look down their noses at her. But as she gets to know him she realizes that he is just as much at the whim of his family as she is; her father is forcing her to marry a member of the ton and his family needs him to marry someone respectable. Horseback rides in the morning, midnight escapades on the balcony, and an eye opening encounter where she discovers that Sevastian looks out for those beneath him socially, and Grier cannot deny her feelings. Sevastian admires her spirit, her love of the outdoors and physical pursuits, and her confidence in the face of those who look down on her. But because of their standings and their past there are those who don't believe that they belong together and together they must defy the odds and convince themselves, and others, that they are perfect together.

I am typically not interested in romances featuring princes from made up countries, making him pennliess and in desperate need of a titled wife to bring respect back to his kingdom, made it more interesting to read about. Sevastian was proud and arrogant and yet it was also clear that he had a huge heart and cared about others, even if there were times where I felt the author was just trying to force his "goodness" down our throat. I loved how he completely disregarded Grier because he did want to follow through on his commitments and that he was really almost unapologetic about what he was looking for. It made his eventual change to loving Grier that much more sweet and it was really nice to read about him letting go of some of his prejudices and being confident enough in himself and his place to marry Grier. Grier was also a really fun character because she wanted to be loved and accepted so much for who she was and I loved that she recognized that she deserved all of that. She stood up for herself when Sev was rude and more than held her own, but she also was comfortable enough to admit her feelings when they changed.

There was a lot going against Grier and Sevastian because of their status in society and I think Jordan did a really good job explaining why they were moving in the same circles. Their pasts influenced who they were and how they went about falling in love with each other and there was some really well developed back story given for both of them. Their relationship progressed wonderfully; they spent a lot of time really getting to know each other and they fell in love with the other person completely. The sex was lukewarm but there was a decent amount of it grouped towards the end because they were tring so hard to fight the attraction they felt for each other. Their was also a little surprise twist that happened at the end so I don't really want to go into too much detail, but it was really well integrated into the story and made enough sense that I understood where it was coming from even while I wasn't expecting it. This book is part of a series so there were, of course, references to previous books in the series that were not overwhelming, and some really nice lead ins for the next book in the series.

Rating: Two really well done characters whose relationship progressed in such an enjoyable way and the book was certainly a very fast read.