Customer Reviews

Gabriel's Angel (Language of Love)

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

 

 

Laura Malone, widowed and eight months pregnant, is on the run from her disapproving former in-laws, who want to raise the baby themselves in their blue-blooded lifestyle. A car accident in the snow brings her to cranky artist Gabriel Bradley. Laura is snowbound with Gabe in his cabin and he offers to marry her to help defeat the in-laws. This was the first Nora Roberts book I have ever read which continued the story after the hero and heroine got married. Laura and Gabe learn to build a new family together and foil the evil in-laws plans.
Excerpt from the back of the book:
"No one was going to take her child away from her! Pregnant and alone, Laura Malone had been on the move for months. Finding herself snowbound with an angry, impatient Gabriel Bradley was not part of her plans.
Gabe wanted to be alone. He'd come to the isolated cabin to think, to work, and to heal. But when a woman crashed into his life-literally-he's felt obliged to help. Laura was everything a man could ever want and all that he desired. She trusted him, but Gabe was hard put to be an angel when Laura felt like heaven in his arms."

Gabe's brother had died a few months before and he felt that he needed time alone to sort out his emotions. The perfect place for him to be secluded and enable him to try and paint once again was at his cabin. The solitude was disrupted when a pregnant Laura wrecks her car and Gabe rescues her.

Nora Roberts then throws in the typical story line of them falling in love, marrying moments (and I do mean moments) before the baby is born, etc. As typical Nora Roberts' style, GABRIEL'S ANGEL doesn't flow along the lines followed by every other romance writer. She always includes interesting detours that sets her apart from the rest. In GABRIEL'S ANGEL, she tosses in a wealthy ex-mother-in-law who is determined to take the baby out of Laura's care. Then the battle of the wealthy matriarchs ensues.

Don't let the synopsis of this book trick you into believing that GABRIEL'S ANGEL will be a typical romance. It's nothing but atypical when written by Nora Roberts.

Gabriel Bradley got much more than he bargained for when he quite literally ran into the gorgeous Laura Malone on that snowy December night. Seeking a respite from the hustle and bustle of day to day life, he wanted nothing more than to retreat from humanity while he sought to get his professional life in order. A gifted artist, he has not been able to complete a thing since the tragic loss of someone very close to him......
Laura Malone is on the run. Pregnant with her deceased husband's child, she has been threated by his very wealthy and affluent family if she does not agree to give the only viable Eagleton heir over to them to raise...while agreeing to disappear. Out of money and options, that accident in the snow may very well be the best thing that has happened to Laura in quite some time....

Told in true Roberts' fashion, this is a love story with the requisite touch of drama and suspense that we have come to know so well from this author. Definitely a good read..although not as "Christmasy" as I would have liked.


DYB

I was dissapointed to bring this book home only to discover that it wasn't a Christmas book as it had been marketed... Also that I had read this in paperback years ago (and for much cheaper than the $17 I paid!)

I am a die hard Nora Roberts fan. I enjoyed it although it was not her best work. I'll always look for the NR symbol on her books so that I know it's a new story /vs/ old reprinted.

This is one of Nora Roberts earlier books. If you have some time to kill and are a fan of Nora Roberts, this an OK book to read. The story line is good, but I felt that the characters were developed only half way. I also felt like this book was rushed and a little on the predictable side. I've read all of her more recent book and am a big fan, but with this book, Ms. Roberts didn't deliever some of that emotional attachment you feel for some of her characters and stories. Now a little clue on what this book is about: Laura Malone has been on the run for several months and is pregnant and alone. She ends up getting snow bound with Gabriel Bradley. Gabriel wants to be left alone so that he can get his life together and heal.

I was somewhat surprised to see this offered. I read it quite a few years ago when it was orginally offered as a Harlequin Intimate Moments. It was ok for a few bucks then, but not worth the $17 they want for it now.

I've read numerous Nora Roberts books and usually enjoy them for the characters and how she develops them. This book lacked that. As another reviewer mentioned, I also found that I couldn't connect to the characters and found them unlikeable and a bit flat. I finished the book because I felt I should, but I didn't like it. I did like Roberts' Blue Smoke and Blue Dahlia, both of which take more time with the story. I'd recommend spending the money on them over this.

Odd that this book is being marketed as a Christmas book when it is set in April! I suppose falling in love while stranded together during a late winter blizzard, complete with a natural setting and cozy fireplace, might evoke feelings of the holiday. As well, a troubled pregnant traveler given shelter and care by the kindness of a stranger loosely parallels the theme of the Christmas story.

Laura and Gabe are both wounded souls thrown together by unexpected circumstances. Falling in love helps each other to heal: Gabe overcomes his grief and finds new inspiration for his art, and Laura learns to trust again and developes the strength to stand up to her powerful former in-laws. In the process, they form a loving family. This story is easily read in one or two sittings and is sure to warm the heart!

I love this story! Maybe not as Christmasy as it is advertised but it truely is a beautiful romantic story about a lonely artist who was very involved with his work, and a a beautiful, pregnant, young woman who is on the run from her deceased husbands family. In the midst of this all they fall madly in love with each other. I absollutely loved it!!!

First off, GABRIEL'S ANGEL is, indeed, a reprint of the original Silhouette edition that was published in 1989. I had read this story years ago, but wanted to reread it and was intrigued with the new cover. Is the book a Christmas story? Not in the literal sense. In the way that it inspires love, happiness, selflessness, and a sense of well-being, then yes, it's a good holiday read.

Laura Malone, former model and a woman whose face was known worldwide, is on the run--not from an abusive husband or a group of bad guys determined to due her harm, but from a domineering, powerful ex-mother-in-law who wants nothing more than to take away Laura's unborn child. Although Laura's former husband is no longer alive, the unborn grandbaby is, at least to Mother-In-Law-Dearest, the necessary means to keep her son alive. With more money than she knows what to do with, she sends out private detectives to find Laura, to force her to return home to hand over custody of her child.

While traveling through Colorado on her way to Dallas, Laura makes a wrong turn--and almost ends up dead during a snowstorm on an isolated mountain road. Fortunately, she narrowly avoids hitting Gabriel Bradley, an artist who has chosen solitude in a small mountain cabin to ease his pain and grief over his brother's untimely death. With no other viable ways to get Laura rescued, he takes her home with him--and is immediately struck not only by her beauty, but by her inner strength in the lengths she'll go to protect her child.

As the storm rages on, Laura and Gabe learn more about each other than they'd planned--and they devise a plan that includes a marriage of convenience to save Laura's unborn child from its grandmother. But their feelings, although not spoken aloud, are edging towards love. Will it be enough to save this family?

Rereading GABRIEL'S ANGEL, I was once again reminded of why I love Nora Roberts and her books. A contrived relationship and overly-used storyline (i.e. marriage of convenience, marry for the baby's sake, etc.) it may be, but Ms. Roberts has a way of writing that fully immerses you in the story. A true romance classic, this is one to reread over and over again.