Customer Reviews

The Dragon's Bride

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

In 1816, along the coast in the southern part of England, Con Somerford and Susan Kerslake come face to face again after youthful betrayal tore them apart. Eleven years ago, at the tender age of fifteen, they shared a magical time together which ended abruptly when, after Susan seduced Con, she callously rejected him when she found out that he was not heir to the Earldom of Wyvern.

Ironically, Con is now the new Earl, and Susan is the housekeeper, a position which she has retained in order to recover some gold due her family from the late Earl. Susan's brother, David, and their father before him, are the infamous Captain Drake, leader of the local smuggler operation. Susan believes that the gold belongs to her because the late Earl received a portion of the smuggling profits in exchange for protecting the smuggling operation. Not only did he fail to protect the smuggling business, he aided in the capture and transportation of the previous Captain Drake.

Despite Susan's prior ill-treatment of Con, he finds himself still drawn to her and wonders if she still harbors a desire to become the Countess of Wyvern. Susan, likewise, is attracted to Con,though he is no longer the boy she spent hours with in youthful exploration. He is now a hardened man, embittered by war and her previous rejection. Can Susan and Con overcome events of the past and find love again?

Jo Beverley has definitely done it again. This is a wonderful read, rich with emotion between hero and heroine. She makes it clear that Susan betrayal of Con, her youthful lover, is so devestating simply because she is the one he has loved all these years. And Susan,likewise, was never able to get over him even though she tried with two other men.

The imagery of the dragon and his bride as represented by the statue is skillfully woven into the relationship of the protaganists as Con discovers that he is not really the dragon he has tatooed on himself, but St. George, the slayer of dragons, who he wanted to be so long ago. The main characters have come full circle, having learned so much about themselves in the eleven years that they spent apart,that they now know that they were truly meant for one another. We will eagerly await THE DEVIL'S HEIRESS, the next installment in this series.

I discovered Jo Beverley in IN PRAISE OF YOUNGER MEN and enjoyed Demon's story, so I looked for the two sequels. I am plagued by the thought that each of these stories should have been like the first...120 pages. Then maybe all three could have been put into one book that would have been enjoyable. The Susan character was, in a word, awful. Don't know if it was truly because she was so unlikeable or because Beverley's writing was so see-saw: "I shouldn't sleep him, but, no, I'm going to anyway"; "I should tell him the truth, but, no, I'm going to lie (again)"; "I need to leave Crag Wyvern immediately, but, no, I'll hang around for another day or two". Honestly, how can you like someone like this for 360 pages? It just had the feel of a well-plotted short story that had been s-t-r-e-t-c-e-d o-u-t unmercifully.

After reading the back description of this book, I immediately liked it and bought it regardless of the unknown author to me. I got even more excited when I read the 5 stars ratings here in Amazon. The housekeeper vs a Gentleman initial plot intrigue me, not to mention their childhood friendship and their romance. That was enough to encourage me to start reading. The first part and the middle part of the book was luring, sharp and fast moving. I liked Susan, she is more human than a fantasy book heroine. She makes mistakes, she makes wrong choices but accepts her faults and LEARNS from it. I enjoyed reading the detailed thoughts of Susan & Con. Ms. Jo Beverly picks her words very well. My heart tightens in reading Con's resentment and Susan's regrets. Con's sharp remarks and hurtful rebukes makes me ache for Susan just as much as for Con. Their Romance and love for each other is simply bittersweet. They both try hard to forget the past and to move on as friends. They try to deny the feelings that is still burning deep inside... but it just can't be done. It makes you ache for them & with them. The smuggling operation as well as the Wyvern's wierd description was an excellent spice to the story... However, towards the end of the book, I am sad to say that the story drags on and then ends abruptly. I expected more towards the end. I expected more action twist. I think Gifford gave up too easily. I also wanted to read more hearty situations where Susan can prove herself to Con. I wanted to read more circumstances for Con to be able to rebuilt his trust back towards Susan. There is no question about their love for each other but Con and Susan are also often times avoiding each other that I was unconvince towards the end. I would have love to read more of them together. Togetherness to improve their relationship... to rebuilt... to develop a newer, stronger bond. That would have been a good way to erase any doubts and forget the hurtful past. This book also contains a lot of secondary characters, all are interesting but I think I will appreciate the secondary characters much better if I have read Jo Beverley's previous books that is in the ROGUE & the GEORGE SERIES.

The Rogue Series goes: AN ARRANGE MARRIAGE.....AN UNWILLING BRIDE.....CHRISTMAS ANGEL......FORBIDDEN.....DANGEROUS JOY.

The George Series goes: THE DEMON'S MISTRESS (Novella:In Praises for Younger Men).....THE DRAGON'S BRIDE.....DEVIL's HEIRESS (Aug., 2001). Hope that helps!

This is my first book of Ms. Jo Beverly and I can't say I am very impressed by her work but then I am not thoroughly disappointed either. Perhaps I will give her another try by reading the next book of this GEORGE series, THE DEVIL's HEIRESS. It would be nice to read updates of Susan and Con anyway. Despite my "unconvinced" complaint, I still rated this book a 4 stars because it was afterall an entertaining read.

Though Napoleon has become history, smuggling remains a way of life on the English coast even in 1816. Susan Kerslake has been housekeeper to the Earl of Wyvern for several years. Now that a new Earl is coming soon, she wonders how he will react to the local illegal activity. However, she worries more about how the Earl Con Somerford will act if he sees her for the first time in over a decade. Frightened, her plan is to flee the Craig before he arrives because the one-time lovers broke apart in a not so friendly manner.

However, Con reaches his new home before Susan escapes. The passion between them remains torrid, but the shared history provides a spectre that threatens to destroy both of them. Will they find happiness with the maturity of adulthood love or will they consume each other with hatred enflamed by their distorted memories?

Jo Beverly is a sure thing when it comes to entertaining historical romance readers and her latest tale, THE DRAGON'S BRIDE, will do just that and more. The story line centers on the relationships between the lead characters that are mostly present but somewhat past. Because Con and Susan seem genuine with real emotions, they carry off the plot, which turns into an enjoyable reading experience for sub-genre fans. What else is new ñ this is Ms. Beverly at her best.

Harriet Klausner

This book was an okay read. It wasn't that good. Beverely talked wat too much and didn't let her characters talk! That is to say that there wasn't much dialogue and even though Beverely converyed the characters feelings quite well, she repeated herself too much. She kept on saying the same things all the time, she described too much and basically after the all the blah, blah, blah I got bored! I thought the plot was good and Con was great. The heroin needed to be worked on a bit more becuase she seemed too selfish and quite frankly she was so unbelievably annoying you wanted to burn the book. How can she evn think that she deserved another chance at Con after what she did to him. And believe me I was a fifteen year old not so very long ago and I know that at that age I would have had the sense to see that Con was the perfect guy for me and I would have never let him slip away! Just because he wasn't an earl! 15 year olds aren't that dumb! The "love scenes" or "sex scenes" as would be the correct term for them were sizziling hot and if you like that sort of thing then they were great - even though there weren't many of them! The most disapointing aspect of this book that the end was very abrupt - and when I say very, I mean VERY abrupt - and by the end of it I wasn't convinced that they were in love.

The only reason I gave this book 3 stars instead of two is because I liked the part when Con goes crazy, starts hacking down the torture room with an ax and then starts ruthlessly kissing her. That scene was really good. Plus when all is said and done Jo beverley is a good writer and even though I'm not fond of her style (no dialogue) her language and writing skills are superb.

Jo Beverley has always been an author who can make what seems to be a hackneyed plot seem fresh and new, and THE DRAGON'S BRIDE is no exception. In this tale, we meet Susan Kerslake and Con Somerford, reunited 11 years after an adolescent affair that ended very badly.

Con has come to Crag Wyvern to claim the inheritance he never wanted and never expected to get, but for the death of his older brother. The first person on his mind -- and the last person he wants to meet -- is Susan. Fate, naturally, is against our hero. He arrives to find a smuggling operation in place on the coast, and Susan in the thick of it. Not only that, but she is his housekeeper! Worse yet, he discovers that underneath all the anger, pain, and rejection of 11 years ago, he still wants her.

For her part, Susan expected to be gone by the time Con came to inspect his new holdings. But with her younger brother involved in the ages-old smuggling operation, and said operation being threatened by the government representatives and rival smuggling gangs, she can't leave. She is terrified when Con shows up so unexpectedly, for now she has to worry about his silence with regard to the smuggling. In addition, she is horrified to discover that she never stopped loving Con, that she had just boxed her feelings up inside, and all the love and regret from when they were 15 comes rushing back.

What makes this plot so unique is that there is no "big misunderstanding" to frustrate the reader: Susan and Con are very human and there is genuine blame in their brief affair, not the usual lack of trust that leads to ridiculous assumptions and partings. Nor is there is a huge mystery and terrifying villain to threaten our erstwhile protagonists, although the intrigue is still very present. Instead, this story provides stripped-down emotions, a visceral relationship between two very realistic and fallible people that is almost as wrenching to read as it would be to live. Another element that makes this story so beautiful is that without the "big misunderstanding" there is no "I hate you; no, I love you" nonsense going on. Con and Susan acknowledge their past and try to deal with it, but they work with each other, rather than against each other, in both their own relationship and in digging for secrets in the deeper past.

Some authors get sloppier or less appealing in their writing as they get more popular and publish more, but I have been delighted to discover that Ms. Beverley is certainly not among them. If anything, the writing in THE DRAGON'S BRIDE is better than in some of her previous works: a wonderful backdrop, witty and amusing secondary characters (including visitors from past works), and finally, fantastically strong and appealing protagonists. THE DRAGON'S BRIDE is on my keeper shelf, and highly recommended.

Another in the Rogue series; this is Con Somerford's story. Now, Con is the Rogue about whom I knew least before reading The Dragon's Bride; we'd been told that he was a soldier, and that he'd survived the Napoleonic wars. He was also 'around' - but just as a name; he never actually took part in any of the plot - in Dangerous Joy. Here, for the first time, we get to know him.

Con has just inherited the Earldom of Wyvern, and so is returning to Crag Wyvern in Devon, a place he has not visited for eleven years. We're also told that he has a lot of buried pain - from the death of Dare (Lord Darius, another Rogue) during the war - and that this is preventing him seeking out his friends for any more than the kind of superficial contact he'd had with Lucien and several others when hunting. He's also avoiding friends from his home in Sussex - friends we've never enountered before, since they're not Rogues. And he's contemplating marriage to Lady Anne Peckworth, Francis' jilted fiancee from Forbidden. Poor Lady Anne - as is obvious since we know that this is Con and Susan's story - gets abandoned again.

(It's only later, in Beverley's author's note, that we discover that The Dragon's Bride is actually a bridge between two series, the Company of Rogues and a series she refers to jokingly as Three Guys Named George - Con's real name being George Connaught Somerford. The first story in this second series is in the anthology entitled In Praise of Younger Men, and is about Van, a character referred to in his absence in this book. Hawk, Con's other non-Rogue friend, appears in this book and his story is told in the forthcoming The Devil's Heiress).

To resume. Back in Devon, Susan Kerslake - the sister and illegitimate daughter of a smuggler - dreads the arrival of the new Earl of Wyvern, because eleven years ago, when they were both fifteen, they had briefly been lovers. Then she'd sent him away believing her to be a fortune-hunter, because she'd made it clear that she wished he and not his (now dead) older brother was the heir to the Earldom. And now, she is Con's housekeeper, and has the responsibility of keeping secret her brother's leadership of the local smuggling gang.

So, when the two former lovers meet, there is a certain amount of friction. There are also mysteries: missing gold, the question of how the old Earl died, Con's secrets, the lovers Susan admits to having in the meantime and so on. And we're introduced to other characters - Susan's brother and cousin, Con's intriguing secretary Race (about whom Beverley half-promises a separate book at some future date), and Hawk.

I give this book a lower rating than the other books in his series for a few reasons. First, I was very disappointed that, apart from two brief scenes with Nicholas, the other Rogues don't figure in this book. It's clear now, of course, that Beverley wanted to introduce Hawk and Race; but Con was such an unknown quantity at the start of this book that having a couple of other Rogues around would have helped. It's one of the features of this series that I really enjoy: being able to meet loved characters again in subsequent books.

Second, because I didn't know about the second series Beverley was beginning, I felt all at sea with Con's thoughts of people I had no knowledge of; the fact that his friend Van's story had already taken place didn't help. It was very clear that there was something important going on with Con and Van, since Van was frequently in Con's thoughts, and this distracted from the main story.

Third, and most important, I never really took to Susan. In all Beverley's other books, with the exception of Forbidden Magic, I have come to love both hero and heroine, to say nothing of minor characters; here, I found myself struggling to like Susan. It wasn't just because of what she'd done to Con when they were first lovers: she was fifteen then, and could be excused. It was because of the way she behaved here; for example, she kept thinking that if only she could wipe the slate clean and tell Con she was sorry, she'd do it. And that she intended to be completely honest with him in future; she didn't want there to be any more lies between them. And yet there were plenty of opportunities where Susan had to choose between truth and more lies - and she lied. And on more than one of those occasions I simply couldn't see any good reason or justification for the lie. So Susan is not my favourite Rogue wife by any means, and I cannot see myself re-reading this book with anything like the same degree of frequency as I'll re-read the other Rogue books.

I won't go into the detail of the story as the previous reviews do that very well. I will say that Ms. Beverley has once again proven herself as "the best of the best" in romance writers. This book has been long awaited as another book in the "Rogue" series, but it is definitely a book that will stand alone. Ms. Beverley has an incredible touch with a story--each of her books are very different and there is always some touch in her stories that puts her above the rest. I can't praise this book enough--hurry to your bookseller or order here on line--to savor one of the best books I have read in quite some while.

I'm sorry to say I didn't want to finish this one and I'm a huge JB fan! It started out okay, but boy, the characters faded into nothing! It wasn't at all interesting after the first few chapters. Con was a fine man but he didn't shine here as he should have. His character fizzled. Susan wasn't THAT bad, but she always had to stop and think if she should lie or tell the truth. Never did she just say what was on her mind in a truthful manner.
Nicholas from AN ARRANGED MARRIAGE is still the best rogue.

I have just discovered Jo Beverley and started with the Arranged Marriage and have read them all so far in order (except Miles Story). And I have read them all in a week - so the stories are all fresh in my mind. I found this book book really boring. I agree with some of the other reviewers this just lacked something. But I do love her writing and am psyched to get started on the next book.