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 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 naĂŻve 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. ( )

I picked this up to reread and couldn't make it all the way through. After about 2/3rds I gave up. I did read all the way through when it was first published. I always considered JG's books light and fairly amusing but I've also always felt that she just tries too hard. In this one the plot petered out and this time I couldn't get over the no one could be that dumbness of the heroine. ( )

This really isn't my sort of setup, both leads just strike me as super childish. The woman is naive and out of her element and basically bungles things at nearly every turn. She's almost simple-minded really. I think it's supposed to be humorous and cute, all her misunderstandings, all her attempts to do things competently that spectacularly fail... the men in the story rail for a minute and then end up finding it incredibly adorable and endearing apparently. I don't really get it. She cries a lot, she's just not very interesting to me. And the hero always seems to be one sneeze away from a fit of anger. I feel like 80% of his dialogue was yelling, ordering, or criticizing... He's described as tall and strapping, but otherwise I don't get his appeal. He has the emotional intelligence of a fruit fly. I believe this is a popular HR, but the plot didn't wow me either. It just wasn't a good fit for me. ( )

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 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. ( )

Julie Garwood fans may be irritated by the whiny nature of this particular "heroine". Not as good as usual. ( )