Customer Reviews

Fortune's Bride

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There are not too many Regencies that include in gritty detail the forced march to Corunna ordered by Sir John Moore, and the horrors that took place during that march. If you loved Marjorie Farrell's Red Red Rose or Georgette Heyer's The Spanish Bride, and you want to read a romance set in the slightly earlier days of the Peninsular campaign, try FORTUNE'S BRIDE. It comes after the Heiress series (The English Heiress, set just before the Reign of Terror in France; The Cornish Heiress; and the Kent Heiress) and characters from these three books appear or are mentioned in FORTUNE'S BRIDE.

The hero is Robert Moreton, the youngest son of the Earl of Moreton, who is army-mad, so much so that although his loving parents try to enlist him on Sir John Moore's staff, he decamps to India to fight with Arthur Wellesley at Assaye and follows this particular star to South America and then the Peninsula. As one of the favored staff officers, he has many privileges but also many responsibilities, including the duty of collecting as many transport animals (mules and horses) as possible from the Portuguese countryside. It is on one such collecting expedition that Moreton finds an Englishwoman apparently being held hostage in a Portuguese village. Well, she is not really being held hostage, but the headman would like her to marry his son.

Esmeralda Talbot is of good family, but she has been socially isolated both from British society in England and Ireland, and from British society in India. Her father was an odd unpleasant man packed off to India where he amassed a fortune but lived as meanly as possible. This style of living however has given Esmeralda (or Merry as she was once called) a backbone and the ability to put up with tough conditions. That is fortunate, because firstly she has to live with an unpleasant father, and then to cope with a shipwreck and his subsequent death in an isolated Portuguese village (when Portugal is under French occupation), and then to ward off the attentions of the headman's son. Robert Moreton rescues her from this sordid situation but he must marry her to preserve her reputation. Their marriage, he assures her, will be one in name only.

Esmeralda rapidly makes herself at home in the British army, winning the approval and admiration of Wellington's other young staff officers both for her ability to cope with difficult circumstances and for her ability to talk reasonably about military matters. She follows her husband around Portugal and then after Wellington has been superseded, into Spain with Sir John Moore. At some point, the marriage is consummated. Robert is convinced however that his wife is not in love with him, and he is not of course in love with her. [There is an almost-farcical scene with Colborne, a name known to lovers of Peninsular Regencies, where he is assured otherwise].

The couple travel into northern Spain with an assorted retinue - Esmeralda's maid and her husband (Robert's servant and groom), a young Portuguese boy Carlos, two mules, and for sometime, even a dancing bear. The retreat to Corunna is devastating not just for the British army's morale, but nearly for Esmeralda and her retinue. She is sent off to Robert's family in London, quaking that they do not want her and worried about Robert. Will Robert's family accept her? How will Robert react to her secret? Will he survive the rear-guard action? And, if he does, will Esmeralda be able to return to the Peninsula and follow the drum with him? The mistakes Robert and Esmeralda make in their relationship and in other dealings are perfectly reasonable ones.

This book is not a typical Gellis romance, in that there are many many historical figures (military types, mostly) who crop in very realistic situations. The book has two maps which are useful in allowing us to follow the hero and heroine on their travels. For those looking for a more substantial romance set in the Peninsular Wars, try this book.

Rating = 4.7
Recommended = Very Highly.

This is one of my all-time favorite books--I had to buy another copy a year or so ago because my original library-bound one had finally stated to shread pages---I love merry Merry and honorable Robert--and the story of Wellington's campaign in Spain and Portugal against the French is great including how the British army almost managed to lose the war thorough its wrong-headed selections of "better" men...

I just wish there was a market for this type of historical writing and Gellis was doing this instead of her mysteries...and romances--not the same quality at all and such wasted talent...

This is my first Roberta Gellis book and I am hooked. The characters were well written with a background rich with historical detail that was not overwhelming. It is good to find an author that one can read to enjoy and learn from. I highly recommend this book and I am currently looking for her backlist. I had heard a lot of good comments about Ms. Gellis and it is good to see that the comments are indeed true. If you see this book, hang onto it because it is on my keeper shelf.

This is the third copy of this book I have had. I read it so much my first copy fell apart. The only thing bad is that most copies I have seen have broken spines. And the pages fall out. A copy I bought previously also had a broken spine, so I found this copy which had no creases in the spine, but unfortunately after reading this it had developed a crease in the spine.