To Catch a Bride

A most peculiar mish-mash of historical romance tropes.

It’s almost as if Ms Gracie had thrown a few dozen stock characters and stock narratives into a hat, pulled out six, then stuck them together without realising that they didn’t fit.

Write-by-numbers heir to a dukedom agrees to a marriage of convenience but finds an excuse to postpone it for a year while he runs around Egypt looking for the missing granddaughter of a dear old friend of his own granny. It takes him only two or three pages to find her.

Thus begins what appears to be a stock Pygmalion narrative. Unfortunately Eliza/Ayisha/Alice seems to remember how to say ‘the rain in Spain’ so that particular narrative doesn’t go far. She agrees to accompany her rakish show more rescuer back to England and the story flags, so the author throws in a tediously long nurse-back-to-health episode which serves only to put the heroine in a must-marry compromising situation.

More boredom, so the author decides to throw in an attack by pirates in which the heroine beats off dozens of dastardly villains by rapping their knuckles with the handles of pistols.

Arriving in England, the dear old lady who so wanted to see her granddaughter suddenly decides she wants nothing to do with her when it turns out she’s illegitimate. So much for the dear old granny.

But, surprise, surprise, the heroine proves to be legitimate by the flimsiest of technicalities. All is now well: cue orchestra for a happy ending.

The book has one redeeming feature. Ms Gracie knows how to write. The characterisation and dialogues may be tedious but the story moves along at a steady clip.

By far the weakest of the three books I’ve read by this author. show less

This was everything a regency romance should be. Very well done. The heroine is spirited and capable while also fresh and charming. The hero knows almost from the first that he wants her. He treats her very well and does everything he can to win her. The conflicts seem real and not just a contrivance to fulfill a plot. The author seems to have done her homework and the flavor of the times is very well done without being too rigid.

As a book reader, you need a romance every once in awhile to make your heart flutter just a little. I do tend to lean toward the romances where the two main characters are at odds with each other, it just makes the ending so much more delicious.

Oh I did like the book, and even though it was the third in a series of books, it stood alone quite well. The secondary characters were a delight, and I hope there is a story about the man in Egypt and the heroine's best friend.

That would be a book I would love to read. Rafe would rate a 6 on my alpha male scale. He wasn't to overbearing, and perhaps a bit stubborn, but so was Ayisha. I loved her story of survival, it made me like her as a character even more.

I liked this historical romance especially the integrity of the hero but never warmed up to the heroine. She was too stubborn in the beginning and she got better but never quite mature enough. Rafe offers to go to Egypt to track down an elderly woman's granddaughter Alicia and finds Ayisha.

A sweet story which had a small number of misunderstandings and good development of the relationship between Rafe and Ayisha.

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