The Bride Thief (Harlequin Presents) [Mass Market Paperback]

Jennie Lucas (Author)

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Harlequin (December 21, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0373129653
• ISBN-13: 978-0373129652
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,628,922 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars 29 Year Old Virgin Falls In Love With Kidnapper, December 22, 2010

By 

Haxxan Dreams (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Bride Thief (Harlequin Presents) (Mass Market Paperback)

The Bride Thief starts out at a royal wedding. The bride, a woman named Rose Linden (a waitress from California who is also a 29 year old virgin) is at the wedding reception, looking at her new husband, and isn't happy. Something feels "off". She walks outside to keep from confronting her family about her misgivings about her new husband and is kidnapped in the garden by a man named Xerxes Novros.

In the getaway car, Novros tells Rose she is not really married...the alleged husband she just wed already has a wife. The mystery wife is in a coma, being held captive by the fake husband Lars Vaxborg who is using the coma wife for her money. Xerxes plans to trade Rose for the woman in the coma, and in the meantime seduce her so he can give Rose back to his enemy as "broken goods". Apparently this will be a sharp blow to Vaxborg, who fell so deep in lust with Rose, he set up this entire fake wedding, flew in all her family to his castle in Sweden, just so he could fake wed, and bed her.

The heroine is not my cup of tea, and it was difficult to read about her. At the beginning of the book, Rose is presented to the reader as a capable, grown woman, but by the end of the first 50 pages, the reader is shown that she is naive, gullible, a bad judge of character, and she lives with an almost adolescent fantasy of what marriage should be. The character traits simply do not mesh. The goody two shoes thing simply isn't believable for any woman who is almost 30, whether she's a virgin or not. Rose came across as very immature, and in turn, that made the hero seem like he was taking advantage of someone who is clearly unable to take care of herself.

Rose speaks to Lars on the phone very soon after the kidnapping, and he admits his misdeeds, and that there is indeed a coma wife. So, very early in the book Rose knows Lars is a liar. That douses the main conflict right away. After that, Rose almost instantly forgives her handsome kidnapper Xerxes for taking her, and sets out to find the good in Xerxes, and to have him recognize it in himself. Meanwhile, Xerxes is trying to seduce her, and has admitted to Rose it is in an effort to be cruel. She even heard him say so on the phone to Lars.

Rose's inability to grasp the concept of what was happening around her was strange, definitely not normal. It may sound far fetched, but I couldn't help picturing this woman as being mentally challenged. This book would have been so much better if Rose had been a mature, world wise woman. She would have been a true match for Xerxes then. But it seems like maybe the writer couldn't make up her mind if she wanted a sophisticated 29 year old woman, or a young innocent virgin for a heroine, so she combined them both. The result is a 30ish woman with the mentality of someone too young to be considering serious relationships. It just doesn't work.

I gave the book 3 stars, because while The Bride Thief is a very flawed story, I had to find out where this book was going. I sat down and read it from beginning to end in one evening.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars It was a fairy tale come true, March 23, 2011

By 

JT Johns "JT" (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Bride Thief (Harlequin Presents) (Mass Market Paperback)

**ALERT: SOME SPOILER INFO**
That is the opening sentence of this book and it is exactly right...this story is a fairy tale. I found myself trying to figure out what year (or era) this story took place because it could not have possibly been in the 21st century. I won't cover the storyline since that has been done by other reviewers. Suffice it to say I did not think that the word virgin was equivalent to naive, ignorant, and clueless. I was actually looking forward to reading this since it wasn't a story about a mid-30s, 40 year old dominant hero paired with a barely out of high school heroine with a complete lack of decently employable skills. Rose is a "beautiful" (which we learn ad nauseum) woman, with no dating experience---at all. Seriously? She's that good looking and it's implied that she has zero experience with men except her family. Really? I get saving herself for marriage and the perfect man, but that doesn't preclude having friends and actually going on a date. Meanwhile, Xerses is on the hunt for his missing half-sister being hidden by her husband, Lars. Lars COMPLETELY pulls the wool over Rose's eyes and "marries" her just to get her into bed--because Rose is that beautiful.

Like one reviewer stated, the author doesn't seem to have a clear idea of who she wants her heroine to be and that quickly becomes exasperating to the reader. Then in less than 24 hours she's in love with her captor who wants to use her and discard her! The ending of the story is completely implausible. Her family raises no alarms after she's been kidnapped, she's returned to her family with no questions asked, and THEN she doesn't believe she's going to be "traded" but she gets in the car to go with Xerses anyway. Oh, and I forgot that Xerses' half-sister has been in a coma for a year with little to no care at all--and what a miracle that she's still alive!

Sad, but true, I still scanned through the book because I had to find out how this story was going to resolve itself. That's why I gave it 2 stars instead of 1 because if nothing else, I had to reach the end.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Romance Junkie, January 13, 2011

By 

Esa Soy "Mady" (New York City) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Bride Thief (Harlequin Presents) (Kindle Edition)

Xeres was the Greek super rich alpha male who kidnapped Rose on her wedding day. She needed a breath of fresh air and went outside the castle, ran into Xeres and off he takes her. She's wearing her virginal white and it couldn't be more fitting for this twenty something year old virgin. I don't want to give the twist away of this story because it's pretty original and I liked it. I love when I don't see what's coming. The problem is that there is very little conflict and it drags a little. I did like Rose because she is NOT a doormat. I also hated the heroes name because in my stupid head I couldn't pronounce his name since I never heard it before. All in all the book was pretty good and I loved the ending.