Customer Reviews

Ashton's Bride

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book was my first romance novel and it got me hooked! I couldn't help but love this book, and I can guarantee that I will never forget it. Not only is this book sweet, but it won't make you blush like some other books I could name. It is definitely a romance novel to give to a friend who hasn't experienced this genre before.

Since the back cover blurb is already given on this page, I'll skip straight to my review:

I read lots of time-travel romances, and I have to say, I didn't find this one all that great. While the time-travel aspect was interesting and well done (as was the historical detail), I felt that the romance left a lot to be desired. For one thing, the reader has to wait forever before there's any real interaction between the hero and heroine (a few ghostly whispers doesn't count as real interaction), and then the romance was really rushed once the hero and heroine finally did meet. Simply throwing the characters into bed does not count as developing the relationship. I was left feeling like the author wanted to get the "falling-in-love" part of the book out of the way so that she could get back to her history.

In which case, she should write historical fiction instead of romance. This romance reader (and others, I'm sure) read romance for the struggles, the trials, and the ups and downs of the relationship between the hero and heroine. We want to see the struggle it takes to get from the initial attraction to the love everlasting. Rushed sex doesn't qualify, at least not for me.

This is the second time I've tried one of the this author's books (the first being ONE PERFECT KNIGHT), and sadly, I didn't enjoy either of them. Not recommended by this reader. For really good time-travel romance, try A TIME TO DREAM by Sherry Lewis, or REMEMBER LOVE by Susan Plunkett.

This was a wonderfully sweet book. The TT plot concerns a modern day English professor and Civil War historian, who connects to the spirit of a Civil War officer through his letters. Her spirit is transported back into the body of the woman he loves as that woman dies. That woman wasn't a very nice one, so the heroine has to deal with the repercussions of a past that isn't hers, as well as the knowledge that her love will be shot by a sniper within the year. She decides to give him everything she can within that time.

The book stands out from other TT for several reasons. One is the hero, who is as sweet and smart and warm and wonderful as you could want, thought he's also full of human doubts. Another is the heroine, who is smart and doesn't lose that when confronted with situations that would stun most people. Third, there are some emotional scenes in the book that moved me to tears. Last, O'Brien did a very good job depicting the time - the reader can feel what's happening along with the heroine.

The end of the book did feel a little off, with some problems cropping up between the couple that just didn't feel right, but they solve them and get past it.

I think the most moving thing to me about the book is the author's afterward, in which she tells us that Ashton is her ancestor, and she got to know him through his letters, much as the heroine does. We see that she's been presenting a fairly real picture of someone for whom she has come to care a great deal, and that makes the story all the more touching.

I recommend this to anyone who likes better TT romances.

This is a very good civil war romance. I found the historical facts accurate and illuminating as well as sometimes funny. After finishing the book, I looked up many things. I never knew, for example, that Robert E Lee and Jefferson Davis did not have their citizenship renewed until the 1970's. Very interesting.

I just finished this book and I loved it. I wish I could find more Civil War Romance Time Travel. This story had me hooked from the first chapter. I read it on my Kindle and I found myself reading this book any chance I got. I love Ashton as men like that do not exist in today's world!

I have always loved time travel romance! This one hits the spot for me!

While I will admit I wasn't sure in the beginning about the heroine- a woman who was six feet tall! Between her height and her Yankee mentality (me being a southerner, born and raised!) I didn't know if I would be able to identify with the character. However I kept reading and was pulled into one of the best stories I think I've ever read! Don't let the height thing throw you off-when she is transported to the past she becomes a woman who was supposed to die- a very attractive,selfish- Southern Belle.

Here's the story:

Margarete Garnett is a woman who is not satisfied with her life at the moment. She has two doctorate degrees-one in American History with an emphasis in the Civil War era and the other in English Literature. However when it was time to apply for jobs, the same folly that we all fall prey to every now and then rears it's head for her- PROCRASTINATION. She didn't apply for a job until all of the 'good' positions at all of the 'upstanding' universities had already been filled. So it is with great trepidation, and no little amount of self recrimination that she heads off to the only job she could find which is at Mongolia University in Tennessee. When she arrives and sees her new home aptly named the 'Rebel's Retreat', many of her doubts seem to melt away. She feels almost as if she has come home.
Soon after settling in she discovers that the college has located some of the personal letters of General Ashton Johnson, one of the heroes of the Confederate army. They are the correspondence between Ashton and a woman- Mag- that he was courting. Margarete devours the letters and feels herself drawn to write her own letter to the handsome soldier who was in his own time also a professor at the Magnolia College. When she wakes up in the morning she finds her letter gone and mysteriously it seems that the hero has responded with a missive of his own.

Margarete soon finds herself fading from the present and becoming part of the past in this lovely novel where love does conquer all-even if you're from the future!

Margaret Garnett was a woman of considerable height, intelligence and was a Yankee through-and-through. After procrastinating on finding a job to pay for her student loans she takes the only job offer to come her way and journeyed to Tennessee's Magnolia University as an English Professor. While attending a faculty party, Margaret see's a portrait of General Ashton Johnson and stunned at her reaction to him; she literally runs from the room.

Having been given General Johnson's correspondence of his time during the Civil War, Margaret falls completely in love with Ashton and after reading a letter he wrote to Mag, a self-centered woman that he had loved all his life, she writes a letter to him and leaves it in the album containing the letters he had written.

Thus, began the romance of Ashton and his Bride and I completely fell in love with this book.

I was given an Advanced Copy of this book in October 1994 and I have kept it at my bedside ever since! It is impossibly dog-eared and the front and back cover's about to fall off, but I would never throw it away!

This was my very first introduction to time travel romance and at first, I remember being a bit skeptical, but after the second chapter, I could not put the book down. I laughed, cried, and just plain wanted to slap Ash for his stubbornness in the end. It does not matter how many times I have read this novel...every time is like the first and after reading the last word I want to start all over again!

It was good but not excellent. I have read other books that were much much better.