|
What happens when a wealthy man of society stumbles across a half-dead woman in rags lying in the street? A Perfect Bride is the story of Devon St. James, a young woman struggling to make a better life for herself in the back streets of London.
An illegitimate child, Devon St. James was raised by her mother in the dark streets and alleys of London to be something other than a beggar, a whore or a thief. But after her mother dies, the streets become more dangerous and more threatening until one night on her way home from work, two thugs ambush Devon. Keeping her wits about her, Devon kills one of the men in self-defense while the other mortally wounds her, leaving her for dead in the gutter.
Sebastian Sterling is out looking for his reprobate brother in the seedier side of the city when his carriage nearly runs over the half-dead girl. His sense of duty and propriety compel him to take her in to tend to her wounds, not knowing who she is or what he’s getting himself into.
A Perfect Bride is an intense romance of a man bound by the chains of propriety and duty fighting against his growing attraction to a lovely woman of illegitimate birth and questionable background. As Sebastian and his brother nurse her back to health, Sebastian struggles to find a reason to keep her near, teaching her to read and write and further her education in the social graces her mother brought to her as a former governess. The author brings all the emotions into full perspective: the guilt, the sense of duty, the joy, the despair of their positions in society and the seeming impossibility of ever being able to overcome the times in which they live. As the Marquess of Thurston Hall, he has a duty to his family to “do the right thing.” Highly recommended, this book is a heart warming romance that pulls all of your emotions into the story with well-rounded, vivid character studies responding to plausible circumstances. This book is the epitome of
what a romance novel should be. I’m looking forward to reading the next in the Samantha James series: A Perfect Groom.
Reviewed by Karla Brandenburg
for The Road to Romance
October 16, 2004
|
