Customer Reviews

The Countess Bride (Harlequin Historical)

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

 

 

Though the premise is exciting and the two romantic leads likeable, the countess bride feels more like the bridging book in a trilogy than a work in of its own right.

It seems to begin in the middle: When we first set the scene, Geoff and Catherine are already in love. They have agreed to go their separate ways because Catherine is hardly a suitable bride for a count, but when Cate is threatened and circumstances grant Geoff new freedoms, they find themselves signing betrothal documents instead. Suddenly, battle is on the horizon and they must journey to see the king.

What follows is pages upon pages of vague references to a scandal that never becomes completely clear, and a lot of apologetic scenes between Hero and Heroine as they angst over whether or not to seal their union. Catherine has scandal in her history (how much, even she does not know. Though later on she remembers some of it), and Geoff knows he is making the right choice for himself, but fears subjecting Catharine to the backlash of it. Also, a lot of pagetime is devoted to the continuation of the hero's brother and sister-in-law's story, and an intrigue that's only sort of settled by the end.

Brisbin's characters are likeable and honorable, and the scenes between them are tender and sweet. The resolution we do get is very satisfying for the major romantic couple. But, the ongoing references to a treasonous plot that was barely overthrown years ago - one often implied and never explained - felt frustrating and tedious. And because our Hero and Heroine's initial courtship was "offstage," I felt robbed of some of the fun of a good romance.

Overall, this book may be an excellent centerpiece to the story of the Dumonts and their lady loves. But as a standalone novel, there are too many lose ends and too much offstage action to make it a reccommendale single read.

Another sequel to the outstanding THE DUMONT BRIDE by Terri Brisbin, THE COUNTESS BRIDE picks up with Catherine de Severin, the sister of William Royce de Severin and the pawn used to control him. Now, Catherine resides with Christian Dumont and his wife Emalie. These wonderful characters from THE DUMONT BRIDE appear again in this 3rd book in the series and revisiting them in this story is a nice tie-in. Catherine de Severin sees no future for herself. Her memory is muddled and her shadowed past haunts her. Her childhood love, Geoffrey Dumont, and young brother to Christian stands to inherit a powerful title and land. Now he seeks a bride and unfortunately Catherine is unfit. As his bride selections are brought before them his heart and mind turn again and again to his true love, Catherine. As she heads to the nunnery to commit herself to God, Geoffrey has other plans, as he sees her life is in danger and throws caution to the wind to save her. Against the wishes of his family he marries her. Still, their troubles are not over. Catherine again finds herself a pawn of high powers that have controlled her life. In many ways, this characters loss of innocence at the hands of others brings more than a touch of sadness to this story. As a reader who read each book in this series with a lot of time in between the next, I highly recommend reading these books in succession. THE COUNTESS BRIDE had me referring to THE DUMONT BRIDE, which I hadn't read in well over two years ago time and time again. To thoroughly enjoy these books they definitely should be read together and would not do well as stand alone stories. THE COUNTESS BRIDE continues in the style of Terri Brisbin's other stories, which are consistently well delivered, sensual with a strong enough dose of historical backdrop to satisfy most discriminating historical romance readers.

Tara Green

This is the third in Brisbin's 'bride' series set in the reign of Richard the Lionheart.
It carries the story from the first two involving the de Severin and Dumont families. The traumatic events of The Dumont Bride are driving the tale here of Catherine de Sevrerin and Geoffrey Dumont. Catherine is a wounded heroine, having been a victim from then, now supposedly set to be a nun and sheltered by the guardianship of Christian Dumont and his wife Emalie. The pair have been youthful friends, only now, when Geoffrey reaches his majority and must choose a wife, do they realise they are in love. Christian is fiercely opposed to this and not just for the more obvious reasons involving money, lands and power.
Catherine is returned to the convent, but then a call to arms by the King in France, allows Geoffrey to attempt to make her his bride.
Much tension erupts and keeps the pages turning. Unfortunately our hero and heroine begin to go over and over the same ground and arguments for not going ahead into marriage from their bethrothal. It made Geoffrey a prevaricating fool and made little sense.
A pity, the tension, so well built, just crumbled away. The political intrigues would have been enough.

This book started out great, I thought Geoffrey was a great, sexy hero, and I thought his relationship - his friendship with Catherine was sweet. For some reason, the book stumbled into boredom rather quickly, though. Also, Christian wasn't that likeable here. And it took little imagination to write this one, as it was nearly the same story as THE DUMONT BRIDE.

The Countess Bride starts off a bit differently ( the leads are already madly in love), but despite this unique opening this story falls rather flat with only a few moments of real emotional intensity and those are usually because one of the leads is upset with the other or they are arguing with other characters in this story.

Catherine lives with Geoff's family. She has no living relatives and is very close to Geoff's sister-in-law. Catherine has not always resided with them though, she use to live in her brother's household. Apparently the brother and his shady antics are in a previous novel which I have not read, but I gathered that he used Catherine as a pawn.

Catherine and Geoff are in love and as stated earlier they begin the novel that way. Geoff's older brother, however, wants him to marry a wealthy landed woman and Geoff at first is agreeable to this, in fact Catherine is too. For the first third of this story Geoff's older brother calls all the shots for this couple.

Catherine it seems is in danger; there are mysteries in her past. Catherine copes through her past ordeals through amnesia but Geoff's older brother has an inkling as to why Catherine may have blocked out certain memories. He keeps much of this to himself, not even informing his brother, who dearly loves Catherine

When Geoff discovers Catherine is in danger he becomes her champion yet these two still are not all together comfortable wit their relationship namely due to Geoff's older brother. Geoff is concerned about thwarting him and Catherine does not want to be the wedge between them.

When Catherine's past is brought to light both leads must reconcile their feelings about the events which occurred in her life. Geoff responds with distrust and Catherine is less than honest with her feelings although her actions were easier to understand.

This story was slow going. The leads spend some time apart and get caught up in royal intrigue which almost overshadows the book. Furthermore, Geoff just seemed a puppet of his brother for far too long. It takes a major crisis for him to man up and reach for his own destiny.