too dark, too many bad memories ( )

Brenda Joyce has written some of my favorite historical romances and this book can be added to that list. The Perfect Bride is set in Regency England, just after the war with Napoleon. Rex is a war hero and a recluse. Blanche recently lost her father and is now an heiress and in need of husband... and Rex seems to be the right man for the job.

One of the things that really stood out in this book are the characters. Rex was injured in the war and has visible and invisible wounds. Blanche seems to be the perfect English lady, but has a disturbing past which she'd buried but is now threatening her life. And the romance between these characters works. Ms. Joyce doesn't have the characters jump immediately into bed. But instead she develops a friendship between them and then passion erupts.

The Perfect Bride is the seventh book in the De Warenne Dynasty series, but stands very well on it's own.

http://www.romancing-the-book.com/2007/11/jens-review-perfect-bride-by-brenda.ht... ( )

dark tale: hardened, one legged hero and trauma unfeeling heroine. it was good but not the best. ( )

Thumbs down! Such a disappointment...First there is the problem of Blanche. an unmarried lady, showing up and staying indefinitely at a bachelor's home with no chaperone or family. No one remarks on this, in 1822? It rankled. Blanche's emotional block seemed extreme but became ridiculous as the story wore on. Both she and Rex suffered from a fantastical amount of humility that started as plausible and noble but quickly became tiresome. I couldn't even finish this one... ( )