Book Review: The Reluctant Bride by Beverley Eikli

Publisher: Choc Lit

Published: 2013

Format: Paperback

Length: 353 pages

Summary from Goodreads:

Can honour and action banish the shadows of old sins?

Emily Micklen has no option after the death of her loving fiancé, Jack, but to marry the scarred, taciturn, soldier who represents her only escape from destitution.

Major Angus McCartney is tormented by the reproachful slate-grey eyes of two strikingly similar women: Jessamine, his dead mistress, and Emily, the unobtainable beauty who is now his reluctant bride.

Emily’s loyalty to Jack’s memory is matched only by Angus’s determination to atone for the past and win his wife with honour and action. As Napoleon cuts a swathe across Europe, Angus is sent to France on a mission of national security, forcing Emily to confront both her allegiance to Jack and her traitorous half-French family.

Angus and Emily may find love, but will the secrets they uncover divide them forever?

Review:

Aside from Pride and Prejudice, this is my second foray into regency romance and I thoroughly enjoyed Beverley Eikli’s novel of secrets and spies. There are quite a few authors who write regency romances, and as I got sent The Reluctant Bride for review, I was intrigued and excited to how my first experience with a modern author would be like.

Thankfully, I was engrossed by the story the second Emily and Angus agree to marry each other. I know I would certainly be a ‘reluctant bride’ if I were in Emily’s boat; if situations such as these were the norm back then I wonder how many women actually married for love. Angus was definitely a sweetie and sounded like the perfect kind of guy a girl could marry back then.

Emily Micklen comes from a wealthy family and is shocked to find out her fiancé Jack has been killed in battle. As she is pregnant, she and Major Angus McCartney, who delivers the news, agree to marry each other, as it would be the most convenient way of settling the situation.

Angus and Emily grow closer as they spend more time together, and the both uncover secrets about people close to them.

I found the writing style really easy to understand, although at time I was a bit slow to catch up on all the details of Napoleon, I guess it’s because I don’t know that much about the French Revolution and everything that followed, but still, I will probably read more books about it now. Ms Eikli lets you sympathise with the characters and thankfully I liked both Angus and Emily a lot.

In conclusion, I thoroughly enjoyed my foray into regency romance, and will definitely check out more books by the author and more works in the genre in the future.