Abandoned at the altar ...
— Lady Beatrix Danbury had always known she would marry William Mallory. She'd loved him forever and she'd never doubted he loved her, too. But when she made him choose between their life together or his lifelong dream, Will chose the latter ... and left two weeks before their wedding. —
Return of the duke ...
—Will has no illusions that Beatrix would welcome him back with open arms, but six years did not dim his love or desire for her. The only problem is, she's about to marry someone else. Someone safe and predictable ... the complete opposite of Will. But can he stop the wedding of the season and win Beatrix back, or is it just too late?—
My Thoughts:
This is my first book by Gehrke and I was a bit underwhelmed by her writing. The book itself didn't compel me to continue reading into the wee hours forgoing sleep to see what would happen next.
The characters were ok. Some I liked more than others. I think I liked the secondary characters more than the primary ones.
Beatrix (or Trix as she was called by Will and Julia) seemed a bit of a martyr. Being "abandoned" two weeks before her wedding did quite a toll on her and after 6 years she was moving on by becoming engaged to a man who she liked but probably wouldn't ever love. I found Beatrix's actions to be annoying. Even though she was almost as much to blame as Will was for her lack of wedding she fully put the blame on Will. Her attitude upon seeing him again was all out hatred and her continual verbal rudeness throughout the book towards him was at complete odds with her thoughts and actions. She spoke a lot about proper behavior and how Will was not following what was proper yet she never actively sought people that would make sure things wouldn't be improper. Like insisting her elderly Aunt chaperone instead of the wild willed Julia. It's these kind of actions that leads one to believe that she actually wanted Will to pursue her. Women who say No but mean Yes are the epitome of stupid to me.
Will came across not much better than Beatrix. He constantly did things that, according to all accounts, were not in his character. Undressing in front of an unwed woman on a beach is not only rakish behavior but it is a complete disregard of respect that he may have had for the woman at all. I did, however, appreciate that throughout the book we did get to understand Will's feelings. He was just as brokenhearted as Beatrix when their wedding didn't happen.
Aiden was the man that Beatrix was engaged to and although the characters did try to appease the situation, Aiden still left wifeless during the course of the book. I felt bad for Aiden. he wasn't a bad character and thought he deserved more. He will probably get his own story which I may or may not read.
I am not a big fan of the reunited lovers plot but I did think that the author did a very good job of explaining their past in a way that I never once felt I was missing an entire prequel to this book.
So, the first time around Beatrix was brokenhearted because she felt that if Will loved her enough he would abandon his dream of Egypt and uncovering King Tutankhamun to stay in England with her and make a family. Will was brokenhearted because he felt that if Beatrix loved him enough she would have gone with him. I liked this idea but I don't think that it was followed through very well because one of the characters ended up looking bad in my eyes more-so than the other which is kind of a shame because the blame should have fallen equally. I did think the ending of the book was good because neither character was going to make the same mistake again. Proper behavior wasn't going to stop them from being together neither was King Tut.
Overall, an ok read. I think the ending raised the rating up a bit higher than average. I will give this author another go but honestly if that book isn't any better than average I probably won't read any more by Gehrke.
No comments:
Post a Comment