Julie Garwood (1944–2023)

It has been thirty years since I last read this book, but it was just as much fun as I remembered. The story opens with a unique twist - King George III facilitates a marriage between two feuding families to end the conflict. The prize is a fortune in cash and a piece of disputed land when the marriage is consummated, and an heir is born. The groom is Nathan, Marquess of St. James, and the bride is Lady Sara Winchester. The twist - Nathan is fourteen and Sara is four. Obviously, consummation show more will have to wait.

Fourteen years later, Nathan is ready to bite the bullet and claim his bride. He's not enthusiastic about it but needs the cash to help establish the shipping company he and his friend Colin formed. There's a fun scene between him and Colin as they discuss Nathan's plan to retrieve his bride. Meanwhile, Sara is impatiently waiting for Nathan to come for her. Her life with her family has been miserable, and now she needs help to rescue her aunt. Letters to Nathan have gone unanswered, so she takes matters into her own hands.

Sara is something of a ditz. She is typical of the young ladies of the period - overprotected, undereducated, and utterly naïve about the real world. The opening scene of her planned rescue shows her oblivious to the danger around her. I laughed out loud as I watched her actions, completely understanding Nathan's disbelief as he followed her. This is just the beginning. I liked Nathan's protectiveness as he followed her, rescued her, and got her aboard his ship. The shipboard scenes with Sara were frequently hilarious as she tried to win over the crew, whom she called her staff, with often disastrous results.

Watching this pair's relationship develop had me laughing out loud throughout the book. Nathan, a man of his time, is arrogant, certain of his place in the world, and convinced that he knows best. He has no intention of falling in love, as women are not to be trusted. Sara, on the other hand, is bluntly honest in expressing her thoughts and feelings. She tells Nathan she is everything he could possibly want in a wife. She lets him know when she is angry or disappointed in him. She also tells him that she loves him and gets frustrated when he doesn't reciprocate. I enjoyed watching Sara wriggle her way into his heart with him all the way. His 'aha' moment was great, and I loved watching him try to fix his mistakes. His method of doing so was a fantastic ending to the book.

There is also tension because of the underhanded actions of Sara's father and uncle. Nathan's protectiveness toward Sara was needed to counteract their actions. Things became complicated when a lie ran up against Nathan's distrust of women, which caused him to make a stupid mistake. Sara's love for Nathan never faltered, though she questioned her belief about his feelings for her. There's a terrific scene where her Nathan-instilled confidence enabled her to come out on top of a confrontation with her uncle. I laughed out loud at the men's reactions. The resolution of that problem was excellent. show less

I’ve been a fan of Julie Garwood now for over twenty-five years. She came recommended to me by my mother-in-law, who is also a romance fan, and she was one of the first mainstream historical romance authors I tried. I remember reading The Gift way back when I was discovering her work. It was probably one of the first Garwood books I tried, but all I really remembered about it is that I’d liked it and that there was some high-seas adventure in it. At the time I first read it, though, I show more didn’t realize it was the third book of a series, so I only more recently read the first two. The Gift, however, is my favorite of the Crown’s Spies series so far and quite possibly my favorite of this author’s books that I’ve read at this point, too. It’s about Nathan St. James and Sara Winchester, who were married as children, a command that was handed down by King George III, himself, as a way to bring peace between their families who’ve been at odds since the medieval era. Nathan was only fourteen at the time, and Sara was a mere four years old. Their wedding is shown in the prologue and their first meeting is adorably sweet with little Sara placing her full trust in Nathan even then. Since then, they’ve lived separate lives, but Sara has dreamed of the day that Nathan will come to whisk her away. Needing the money that fulfilling the marriage contract will eventually bring him, Nathan finally shows up fourteen years later, intending to collect his bride and do just that, but with no designs on falling in love. However, Sara confounds him at every turn with her sweet, generous spirit and annoys the hell out of him when she brings one calamity after another upon his ship. But soon, he can no longer imagine his life without her, even though the word “love” isn’t exactly in his vocabulary. This book was a delightful reread that turned out to be equal parts sweet, sexy, and LOL funny.

Sara is a naive, idealistic dreamer who usually has her head in the clouds. She’s also a hopeless romantic who has built up the husband she hasn’t seen since their wedding day into the perfect fairy tale prince. When her uncle and his brothers try to have her beloved Aunt Nora, who is the black sheep of the family for marrying far beneath her station, committed to an asylum in order to steal her money, Sara writes, asking for Nathan’s help. What she doesn’t know, though, is that her missives went astray, so when he doesn’t come, she decides to take matters into her own hands. Sneaking out late at night, she walks the few blocks to her uncle’s town house where she believes Nora is being held captive and frees her, but little does she know that her husband coincidentally showed up anyway and protected her all along the way. When she goes to a tavern to confront her uncle and get Nora’s wedding ring back, then she finally meets her huge, handsome spouse, who once again saves her and takes her aboard his ship. At first, she’s a little afraid of him, but she gradually comes to realize that he’d never hurt her even though he frequently bellows at her for the wacky things that she does. Sara is one of the sweetest, most innocent and guileless heroines I believe I’ve ever read. She’s also a walking calamity who nearly destroys Nathan’s ship on more than one occasion, even driving his crew to wear garlic to ward off the bad luck she brings. But underneath it all, she has a genuinely good heart. She comes to deeply love and have absolute trust in Nathan pretty quickly, and once she does, she’s loyal to a fault, defending him even when he irritates her. She’s quite protective of those she loves and that comes to include Nathan. She’s extremely shy on their “wedding night,” but once sexually awakened, she becomes a very responsive lover and is quite demonstrative of her love in more ways than one.

Nathan lost his parents at a young age and became responsible for his younger sister, Jade, who found her HEA in the previous book, Guardian Angel. Although a marquess, he’s spent most of the intervening years since marrying Sara as a pirate and spy for the crown. With the bounty on his pirate persona growing larger by the day, he decides it’s time to go straight and start a legitimate shipping company with his best friend, Colin. In order to build it up, though, he needs more money, but he lost much of what he owned when both of his homes fell victim to arson. The marriage contract includes a gift of land and gold after Nathan has spent one year living as husband and wife with Sara and producing an heir, so he decides to finally go claim her. Most of the Winchester women are plain and plump, and the clan in general are pretty ill-tempered, so he doesn’t expect much, leaving him pleasantly surprised to discover that Sara is quite comely and pretty sweet-tempered, if a bit stubborn. Even though she seems to cause one catastrophe after another that tries his patience, he knows that she isn’t doing it deliberately, and her frequent tears and heartfelt apologies make it impossible for him to stay mad at her for long. Although he doesn’t recognize his emotions as love, the kind and gentle way he always treats her and his growing inability to imagine life without her make his feelings abundantly clear even if it takes him a while to admit it both to himself and to her. Even though Nathan can play the growly alpha, he never annoyed me. I loved him to pieces and found him nearly as amusing as Sara.

I can hardly express how much fun I had rereading The Gift. Even though I had vague recollections of enjoying it before, this revisit exceeded my expectations. I’m very particular about rom-coms, often finding them too shallow or not as humorous as they’re supposed to be, but this one tickled my funny bone just right. I think I spent the entire time I read it with a goofy grin on my face, if not outright laughing. It’s a little slap-sticky, but it totally worked for me. I can’t recall when I’ve read a more hilarious book. Yet, interspersed with all the fun and games was a sweet, tender love story that gave me all the feels that I expect in a romance. It was completely apparent from their adorable first meeting in the prologue that these two were star-crossed loves meant for each other. I love Sara’s complete faith and trust in Nathan even when he stubbornly refuses to tell her he loves her. Nathan may be a little rough around the edges, but he has a good heart, expressing his love in his own sweet way, through his kindness, gentleness, and protectiveness. I enjoyed the secondary romance between Nora and Matthew, one of Nathan’s seamen. There were plenty of other supporting characters to liven things up as well, including Caine and Jade (Guardian Angel) and Colin, who will become the hero of the next book, Castles. This series may have gotten off to a slow start for me, but after this charming and entertaining entry, I’m now looking forward to finishing it off soon, while hoping that Colin’s story will be equally as diverting as this one was. show less

Castles is the fourth and final book in Julie Garwood’s Crown’s Spies Regency historical series. This one features Colin, younger brother of Caine (Guardian Angel) and business partner of Nathan (The Gift) paired with Alesandra, the orphaned princess of a fictional nation. By the age of twelve, Alesandra had lost both her parents and was raised in a convent by nuns. Now that she’s of age, the nuns have discovered a scheme by the general of Alesandra’s country to kidnap her and force show more her to marry him, so they send her to the Englishman who was designated by her father as her guardian. He and his wife were supposed to look after her and help with her entree into society, but when they, as well as Caine and his wife, come down with a rather debilitating illness, they send her to their younger son, Colin, for safekeeping. At first, Colin isn’t particularly thrilled to be babysitting a princess, no matter how alluring she might be, and when she lets it slip that his father was hoping he might marry her to keep her safe from the general, Colin unequivocally says no. However, the longer she stays with him, the harder he finds it to resist her. Knowing she needs to marry quickly to quell the threat against her, Alesandra has been making a list of eligible gentleman, so Colin agrees to help her vet the candidates, only to discover that he can’t stomach the idea of her with anyone else but him. He finally agrees to a marriage of convenience, never intending to fall for his lovely wife, but along the way, he does just that. Convincing her of his love, though, could prove difficult when she can’t help feeling that he’s rejected everything she has to offer him. And then there’s also the matter of a serial killer on the loose who appears to be targeting all the women in Colin’s family, including Alesandra.

Alesandra had a good childhood until losing her parents and being raised by nuns. Given that she’s spent the last six years of her life in a convent, she’s very innocent and sweet, but with a touch of mischief in her. Although her heart is usually in the right place, she tends to get on the Mother Superior’s nerves at times, so the good Mother is happy to send Alesandra to her guardian in England when danger begins to lurk. The only way her guardian knows to fully keep Alesandra out of the evil general’s clutches is to marry her off quickly, so when the rest of the family falls ill, he sends her to Colin hoping that he’ll accept responsibility for her. Although she finds him to be stubborn, Alesandra likes Colin almost immediately and tries to make herself useful in his household. However, when Colin resists the idea of marrying her, she must return to her list of potential suitors, of whom he humorously finds fault with each and every one before finally relenting. Once they’re married, Alesandra has no illusions about him loving her, but knowing how much her parents loved each other, she hopes that in time, he’ll come to care for her in a deeper way. But at every turn, Colin seems to reject the only things Alesandra believes she can offer, namely her inheritance money and her help with certain business matters, leaving her feeling bereft of a connection to her new husband and resorting to a bit of trickery to get around his arrogant dictates. Like most Julie Garwood heroines, Alesandra is sweet and quirky, but one impressive thing she possesses is a good head for numbers. She makes her own investments,, although as a woman, she must invent a fictional “uncle” to do so, and she deftly takes over Colin’s bookkeeping when he’s ill. She also figures out a way to ease the pain Colin experiences from an old injury. Alesandra is simply an all-around kindhearted heroine who cares for others, especially Colin, even when she has to find inventive ways to do things for his own good, which I appreciated.

Colin is the second son of a nobleman and a mere knight, so he and his business partner, Nathan, have been working hard to build their shipping company. It’s doing well, but he has a five-year plan that doesn’t include marriage or kids until he reaches his business goals. When Alesandra shows up unannounced at his townhouse, Colin immediately starts to suspect his father is matchmaking, and in her sweet honesty, Alesandra admits as much. Although he finds her extremely attractive, he immediately says no to marriage, because it doesn’t fit his plan. But Alesandra slowly starts to get to him, until he finds himself coming up with the most ridiculous arguments to reject every other potential suitor, because deep down he can’t bear the thought of her with someone else. At that point, he realizes that he’s going to have to marry her himself after all, but he still plans for it to only be a marriage of convenience until he figures out that Alesandra has fallen for him and he can no longer withhold his heart from her either. If I’m being honest, I’d have to say that Colin was a little underdeveloped. He’s very much the usual Julie Garwood hero, an alpha with a heart of gold. Love kind of sneaks up on him, but when it does, he doesn’t fight it. The most interesting thing about him is that sometime in the past, a shark took a bite out of his leg, so it’s badly scarred and causes him pain. Like the stereotypical alpha, he doesn’t like to talk about it, but when he discovers that Alesandra has been secretly helping him, he almost immediately opens up. He’s basically the steadfast foil to Alesandra’s flightiness, a good guy with a kind heart, but his characterization didn’t move much beyond that.

Although I’m not entirely certain, I think I might have read Castles in my time before joining GoodReads and meticulously keeping track of my reading. Parts of it seemed vaguely familiar to me, but I wasn’t sure if that’s because I’d previously read it or if it just bore similarities with other Julie Garwood books. In any case, it was a good wrap-up to this series. The story was cute and sweet with plenty of Julie Garwood’s trademark humor that keeps things pretty light. I like that Alesandra was intelligent, even though otherwise, she’s kind of the quirky heroine we usually see from this author. Colin is a good match for her, handling her oddness with grace. Having Alesandra be the wealthier one was a nice change of pace, too, even though Colin, stubborn, independent alpha that he is, refuses to use her money, even when Nathan decides to go against their plans and offer stock shares of the company to keep it solvent. Lucky for them Alesandra is smart enough to elude Colin’s scrutiny temporarily to keep it all in the family like they’d originally intended. And eventually Colin comes around with relative ease. I enjoyed the visits with Caine and Jade (Guardian Angel) and Nathan and Sara (The Gift) and getting to see their growing families. There’s a touch of mystery in the form of occasional brief scenes from the POV of the serial killer as he goes after victims, and while the author set up a few possibilities, it wasn’t difficult to discern who the villain was. His motives were a little on the weak side, too, but this part of the story provided a small bit of excitement at the end. Mostly, though, Castles is lighthearted fare that I’d recommend to lovers of historical romance with a rom-com vibe. show less

Synopsis: The Bride is the first in a two-part series of medieval romances by Julie Garwood. Jamie (aka: the Bride), a young Englishwoman, is forced into an arranged marriage to Highland laird Alec Kincaid. Alec has little use for a wife, but is honor-bound by his king to marry the girl. He's a stubborn lord used to giving orders and not getting any lip; she's an independent woman used to managing a household and thinking for herself. They spend 3/4 of the book arguing (and making up show more afterward), until the end when the real conflict surfaces.

When I write it out like that, it doesn't sound like much of a book, but honestly, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The interaction between Jaimie and Alec is engaging and I found myself hanging on their every conversation and waiting to see what they would do next. Garwood's style is easy to follow and the dialogue is downright hilarious at times. I didn't really care all that much about the "plot" of the story, and I don't think the author does either. The romance and the interaction between the hero and heroine are what drives this story.

I mostly read historical regency romance, but I've read a number of medieval romances as well. I'm not such a big fan of medieval romances, though. It seems like so many medieval romances have a lot of scenes where the hero dominates the heroine in most every aspect of their relationship. Even if the heroine is depicted as "spirited" and strong-willed, it seems like she's always having to "learn a lesson" in respecting the hero's dominance. Sometimes, there are even a few quasi-rape scenes in these novels, which TOTALLY puts me off. I know that it was totally a male-dominated society back then, but I still like my romances with a little more give and take on BOTH sides - and a respect for each other's bodies.

The Bride didn't fall into that pitfall though. Alec doesn't ever try to dominate Jaimie physically (although he does occasionally want to throttle her for her outrageous behavior). Both the hero and the heroine spend a good deal of time overcoming their difficulties in communicating and their assumptions about what the other is feeling/thinking. I hope that the second book in this series, The Wedding, will be just as good. show less