Customer Reviews

Honor'S Bride (Harlequin Historical)

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

 

 

but sometimes love is more important. Kit, Lord St. John, is proving his worth, his honor, not just the father who had all but given up on him, but also to himself. Then into his life waltzes Judith Haviland, one woman he can never have. In the middle of the horrors of war, love blossoms, an impossible love. Impossible until fate takes things in hand.

Kit and Judith's story is a powerful one that pulls on the heart strings. Once again, Gayle Wilson shows her abilities as a story teller and delights her fans with this tale of true love.

Titles are important for acuracy but it sure didn't lessen my enjoyment of this book. Most of us uninformed didn't even catch the discrepancie of Kit Montgomery's pilfered title.

In that day and age what did a man have if not his honor?
Michael Haviland turned out to be a louse but that was to be expected. How could Judith put up with the man?

I really enjoyed Kit's subordinates and their confidence in him as a commanding officer and their affection for him.

The story of their near excapes from death and danger kept me on edge and not willing to put the book down for any length of time. [gulp] I was sure Judith was going to finally hack off Kits' arm. Thank god for the "healing lady".

I find it, in my American upbringing, hard to think of the horrors and deprivation that the women [and men] went through in the Napoleonic wars. And am of the firm belief that millions should be set aside for veterans of all wars. [Take it from the fat-cat politicians]Where is their honor?

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED -- You will really enjoy the ending to the scandal and conflict of Kit and Judith's life especially when papa, the Earl of Ryde decides to step in.

Many regencies follow a format that this book does not follow. The heroine actually has some backbone, traveling with army in the war. Not typical for a regency. And the hero has amazing feet of clay. He falls in love with a woman who is far from ball rooms and silk gowns. A woman caught in a terrible and strained marriage torn by abuse and alcholism. It is a very sweet love story as they both bravely struggle through the grim reality of the war together. The story leaves you wanting to more, and you are sorry when the last page is turned.

Honor is the dead horse that is thoroughly beaten in this tale of forbidden love, sinful desires, and promises that are always always kept no matter what, not even if your life depends on bending the rules a tiny, tiny bit. Judith's father owes his life to an old war buddy, and to repay this debt he promises Judith in marriage to the war buddy's son Michael Hamilton. Because of honor, Judith has no choice and goes along with it. Michael Hamilton is an officer in the war, so she has to go with him to Portugal as an army wife.

One aspect of the story that made it very readable and interesting was its unusual setting. Gayle Wilson plops you down in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars that you only distantly hear about in other romances. Military life is frankly depicted in all its difficulties and horrors. Judith is a strong character who has risen to the challenges of this life. She seems almost too good to be human, and she's described as an angel, but she manages not to be annoying in this respect, surprisingly, because the conditions that surround her call for true strength, which she has and exhibits. War is the reality here, and her good works for the army (she cares for the wounded when there are no surgeons at hand) are much needed. She's not some prissy charity zealot patting herself on the back as she coddles a lot of precocious orphans. She hasn't had much choice in the direction her life has taken, and this could very easily have made her out to be a passive martyr. Somehow she avoids this misstep, (well, some of the time,) and her acceptance of her lot in life, her fortitude in meeting it, really is admirable. It's when she does have the power to make other choices, and she just can't break the martyrdom habit, that I start to take issue with the story.

She's married to Michael for about half the story, which is a shame because he's our villain, and a pretty disgusting, despicable one too, a drunken, blackmailing coward. Some attempts are made to give him a little more depth than you would expect, but he's still worthless, and I'm very aggravated that Judith's honor demands her allegiance to him, during his life and even after his death. You would think that after he's gone she could save herself and be well rid of him, but no, she must protect his honor, her honor, the honor of her father, of his father. Of practically everyone. Honor's a very far reaching thing in this book, a rigid code that dictates everyone's actions, regardless of common sense or the interests of self-preservation.

Kit St. John is a fellow officer of Michael's, and they've been in the same regiment for three years now. He's a former rake banished to the army by his disgusted father, who hopes the army will make a man out of him. And it certainly does. Yum. Kit harbors a secret torch for Judith, even though he's distraught by how bad it is to covet another man's wife. She likes him a lot too. Their forbidden love and quiet friendship is believable and compelling. They both respect and care deeply for the other. But there's so much that stands between their romance, (all that honor stuff) that it's only with a great deal of contrivance that this love can be expressed - Kit gets wounded, the regiment is decimated by a surprise attack, and Kit and Judith are the only survivors. He's delirious with fever thanks to his injury, and that's when they get to have their make out sessions. It was too bizarre for me, considering they're in grave danger from the French, and he's practically on death's door. This episode is pretty brief, and from then on, once they're rescued, they hold back from each other up until the very end. Even when Michael is gone, and they're free to be together, they still hold back for various annoying and feeble reasons. There's just too much left unspoken between them throughout, and by the time they manage some communication, it's too late for me. The sacrifices Judith and Kit make are all very noble and all, but I think they take it way too far. On the one hand I appreciate the characters' struggles to do the right thing, especially when they receive punishment for it, let alone any payoff, and all to the benefit of an awful person. But at the same time, it's very hard for me to appreciate a story in which the upholding of honor would, were it not for divine intervention, cost the characters all that really matters in life. So even though Gayle Wilson tells her story very well here, it's not a story I like very much - even if she was able to wring a tear or two from me at one point. And really that was for the horrible waste these characters almost caused because of their precious honor.

From the back cover:
WITHOUT HONOR, THERE IS NOTHING...

So Kit Montgomery, Lord St. John, had been taught since the cradle, yet his soul whispered there was something more. Something that made him long to look into the haunted depths of Judith Haviland's gaze and offer comfort, long before he had the right...

Though he had comforted Judith in the darkest hours of her late husband's abuse, Lord St. John's kind regard had never once gone beyond the bounds of friendship. Even now, his offer of marriage was meant only to preserve her honor. Yet could she marry him to stop the rumors that only told the truth of what was in her heart?

Don't stop here, go buy it!

As much as I enjoyed this book, I found one inaccuracy particularly jarring. If Kit is a second son, where did his title come from? It doesn't matter how many secondary titles his father has; all of them , without exception, would go to the oldest son, and the second son would get NOTHING. It wouldn't have taken much research to learn this. And let's not use the example of the Duke of Wellington, who was a younger son. He EARNED that dukedom on the battlefield. Somehow I doubt that Kit did that.

Usually the error with Kit's name and title would totally turn me off. However, I have loved every book by Gayle Wilson so I kept on reading. I am so glad I did. Kit and Harriet's honor and courage, as well as their commitment to keeping the faith even with the faithless, at the risk not only of reputation but of life itself, made this - in spite of that glaring faux pas - the best, so far, of Ms Wilson's grand regencies.

This is the fifth Gayle Wilson Story I read in the past month. I just discovered her great stories and am trying to catch up on all the regencies she's written. The only thing I regret is that the story wasn't longer.

I've read so far four of Gayle Wilson's regencies and enjoyed them. However, this story was irritating because for some reason the titles were all wrong. Firstly, Kit's father is the Earl of Ryde, yet Kit, a younger son is a Lord? Younger sons are only lords if their fathers are dukes and maybe marquesses (not sure of the latter though). The younger son of an earl would be an Honourable Mr. Also, even if Kit's father was a duke (he has a ducal ring in the book!) his proper title as a younger son would be Lord Christopher Montgomery (Montgomery being the family name) not Lord St.John. He wouldn't even be Lord Montgomery, as younger sons are not lords in their own right, it merely being a courtesy title.