Customer Reviews

Broken Vows, Mended Hearts: A Bouquet Of Thistles\Paying The Piper\Battle-Torn Bride (Harlequin Historical)

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

 

 

Lyn Stone-A Bouquet of Thistles- ***
This was an okay story with a decent plot. Alys was a great girl, and the hero, John, was honorable and handsome, (he was the best thing about this story). But I wouldn't have minded if someone had throttled Alys' bratty brother. The boy was just too vindictive for my taste.

Gail Ranstrom-Paying the Piper-**
A very predictable, boring tale. And I like this author! The hero, Anthony had great potential, his good looks, a war hero, and wealthy to boot, but the author somehow succeeded in making him a very boring guy.

Anne O'Brien- Battle-Torn Bride- *****
The Best of the lot. Great characters in war-torn 15th century England. Richard was the perfect hero and the love between him and Beatrice came through very well. The story, based on fact, held my interest to the last page.

More like 3.5, but I just couldn't bring myself to give it 4.

The first story is good, and I think with more length it could have turned into something really nice. The characters have reasonable motivations and realistic expectations, and they are a believable match in temperament and values. My only problem is how quickly the H falls for the h once he decides to head in that direction. It just doesn't ring true for me that he would get quite so vulnerable in his language. The author stays true to the expectations of that historical setting for the majority of the book; I would have felt more satisfied if it would have ended with them pledging to begin good life together and elude to what is going to turn that into a loving family, rather than have gushing professions of love.

The second story is the weakest, despite being my original reason for buying this book. It also suffers from the novella format, but I'm not sure it would have improved much with length. It's still a pleasant read though.

The third story has an interesting premise, and I'd love to know how many of the details match the true story of what happened in real life. I liked both characters, and I like the writing. The settings were well-described, and I felt like I had stepped back into that time period. My only complaint is that I feel like there was too much of the H/h remaining separated because of, not misunderstandings, exactly, but more like the fact that neither of them had all the facts at any given time. That frustrated me a bit, but not nearly so much as it would have with a full-length novel because I knew I'd not wallow in that for more than a few chapters. :]

Going into this book, I expected to like Gail Ranstrom's story and maybe discover someone new. I've not read Lyn Stone nor Anne O'Brien before, but both efforts are good enough to make me curious to see how they handle a full-length book.