Customer Reviews

Lost in Your Arms (The Governess Brides)

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I am a fan of Christina Dodd, so my review is probably a little biased.

In this story, Enid is a nurse who cares for the elderly. She is called from the home of a woman she cares deeply for, to unwillingly care for her estranged husband. She remembers Stephen as a reckless gambler who abandoned her, leaving her to pay his debts by working as a nurse. As she puts it, she was only "this" close from being in the workhouse. Over a period of 9 years, her resentment has grown. She now only wants a plot of land, so she can tend a garden and have a sense of stability and familiarity in her life.

She does not recognize Stephen, since his injuries leave his face and body bandaged and scarred. She does remember his eyes and works on bringing him back from the brink of death. When he finally awakens, he has lost his memory and does not remember anything about his past, including his wife.

Throughout the book, Enid slowly reveals why she has resented him so many years. It seems as though Stephen has changed. His physical nearness and teasing affects Enid, as well as his new devotion to her. Is he really the same person she married?

Again, I really liked this book. Enid was a strong character, who was not afraid to clean up and tend to her patient and his room. Unlike most novels, where a servant or maid did the cleaning up and watching over a patient. She was always quick to come up with a witty response to Stephen, rather than let him dictate to her.

I have to admit that like some other readers, I too was surprised at how good this book was. I had enjoyed Christina Dodd's In My Wildest Dreams immensely and was so pleasantly surprised that Lost In Your Arms was just as enjoyable.

My favorite books are the type that just make the heart ache when reading about the misery the characters sometimes experience because of various reasons. Christina Dodd does so extremely well in making us feel for her characters. Others have written about the plot so I won't add to their excellent accounts but just to say that Enid and Stephen are two of the most compelling characters I've had the opportunity to experience.

Some have mentioned the similarity to Linda Howard's White Lies. With no disrespect to Linda Howard who is one of my favorite authors, White Lies pales in comparison to Lost in Your Arms. I cannot remember reading an `amnesia' story which I've enjoyed more than this.

This is a definite keeper! My only regret is that I did not read the amazingly wonderful book sooner.

I read Publisher's Weekly review on this book, and they called it a weak entry. Did we read the same book? Lost in Your Arms is one of the best Christine Dodd books I've read. Infact this book made me her fan. I read this one first not realizing it was a series, I hope the rest of them are this good!

Enid Seymore was no stranger to life's hardships, the orphaned bastard child of a nobleman, thought luck was finally in her favor when she met and married the handsome, and charming Stephen Maclean, but soon realized that this was no fairy tale and Stephen was far from the knight in shining armor she thought he was. When her husband cast her off after 3 months of marriage, and left her with all his debts, Enid was forced to find work as an assistant to a village doctor. Now a nurse companion 9 years later, Enid recieves a message that her no good husband is badly injured and she is needed to nurse him back to health. The last thing Enid wanted was to meet Stephen again, but she dutifully nurses him back from the brink off death, only to realize that he has amnesia and can't remember her at all. Besides his familiar green eyes, this man is unlike the spoiled, rotten, and selfish man she married 9 years ago.

Maclean was sure he would have remembered having Enid as a wife, who would forget having a beautiful and saucey wife sleeping next to him at night. But yet for the life of him he couldn't remember a thing about her or of the life she claimed he lived. He didn't gamble as she claimed he loved to do, and he would never cast off his wife as she said he did. All he knows is that whatever secrets are locked away in his memory, someone is trying to kill him to make sure they are never revealed...

Lost In Your Arms, is a beautiful love story that I have read over and over again, once you start you can't put it down until your finished!

What a wonderful story! Enid MacLean is living a good life, doing so very well after all her struggles. She had been abandoned by her husband Stephen 9 years prior, and left with his debts and the shame yet she had persevered! She had learned a trade (nursing) and had been in a situation as nurse/companion for Lady Halifax. All in all - a comfortable position,until Garrick Throckmorton issued her a summons to come and care for her long estranged and gravely ill husband Stephen.

Stephen MacLean lay, battered and bruised dying, and try as she might, Enid could not turn her back on him no matter how much she would like to forget he existed. So much pain he had caused, but there was no denying those incredible green and gold eyes that opened. How could she find herself drawn to him after he had so callously treated her? Yet, perhaps he had changed in 9 years. He woke, he didn't know her, let alone himself - amnesia after almost being killed? On top of that - people were still trying to kill him.

What a great story! The characters are real - the emotions are real - the erupting passion is HOT! The words of passion and love are like poetry. But lest we not forget, we are speaking of a Christina Dodd novel and the dialog will also be humourous! This has to be one of her best. I felt Enid's pain - the betrayal of Stephen from long ago, the pain of losing a cherished friend and the pain of falling in love and not being able to guard yourself against the hurt that can come of loving the wrong person! Very emotional, suspense, humor, adventure and loving - a GREAT read!

Enid MacLean had been estranged from her husband for nine years. She survived by nursing those extremely ill. Then, out of the blue, she received word that an explosion had injured her husband. He was not expected to live, but Enid agreed to do her duty and try to nurse him back to health. Except for his distinctive green eyes, the man she nursed had changed.

When he first opened his eyes he believed Enid to be an angel. But the pain proved that he was NOT in heaven. The explosion took away his memory. He did not recognize his good friends or his own wife. Worse yet, the blast had not been an accident. Someone feared the knowledge locked away in his mind.

***** What can I say? It is by Christina Dodd, so you KNOW it will be great! I opened the book with that thought in mind. I closed the book only when the last page had been read. Yes, it is THAT good! A wonderful way to release yourself from your troubles, at least temporarily. *****

I looked forward to buying this book, because I liked the story idea. I'm a sucker for the amnesia angle, I have to admit. I found it in the Atlanta airport a day before its official release, and read it on a trip to Las Vegas. I finished it, but just barely, and more than once I was tempted to just leave it unfinished somewhere for someone else to bother with. I thought the writing was awful, and I didn't like the characters very much. I can't understand being immediately physically attracted to the man when he's gaunt, physically wasted, heavily bandaged, and very near death. It was apparently supposed to be some mystic psychic connection that arced between the two as soon as she laid eyes on his unconscious form, as far as I can tell. I could understand feeling pity and sympathy, and I can understand Enid wanting to do her best for him as a conscientious nurse, but I didn't believe that instant attraction at all. I also have a tough time with the thought that he was so far gone physically, but within a pretty short period of time he's Greek statue perfect, with relatively little effort that could accomplish this feat. I don't understand why the relationship had to start out on such an unrealistic note, rather than growing over time as they each see things in the other that they would come to admire, respect, and love. Enid certainly had every reason to hate her husband, based on the awful things he'd done to her, and the position he'd left her in when he walked out on her. Enid would constantly reflect back on those things, but they seemed to have no real impact or relevance to her, and they certainly had no real effect on her behavior. I just didn't believe in the characters' relationship, I didn't believe in its foundations, and I didn't believe in its growth. As noted in the title, above, I thought the prose was a bit over the top. It was like the writer was trying to drag me up the mountain, rather than letting the writing carry me along more naturally and freely. I don't know if this review will prove helpful. I just found the book annoying, and I was all the more disappointed for having so anticipated reading it with pleasure.

After a brief infatuation, Enid MacLean had married at the tender age of seventeen. Her husband, Stephen MacLean, turned out to be impulsive, irresponsible, and unwilling to stay in one place too long. After three months of marriage, he abandoned Enid to fend for herself, and pay off his accumulated debts.

Nine years later, Enid now works as a nurse companion for the Distinguished Academy of Governesses. Her world is turned upside down again, when a man named Throckmorton informs her of an explosion abroad, which has severely injured her long-missing husband. Reluctantly, she leaves her current post to do her wifely duty and take care of Stephen. What she sees when she gets there is shocking. This man, barely clinging to life, looks nothing like the husband she remembers, except for the striking color of his eyes. Until her arrival, most everyone felt he had no chance of survival, and had given him up for dead. For reasons Enid cannot fathom, she feels more of a connection to this familiar stranger than she should, and is determined he would not die. His body's injuries gradually heal, but when he wakes, he has no memory of anything, including his wife.

As much as they try, neither can deny the overwhelming desire they feel for each other. But the security at this sanctuary is fleeting, when an attempt is made on their lives. So Throckmorton sends them to Stephen's family home in Scotland. A journey Enid dreads, because she will be forced to face the man who despises her, Kiernan MacLean, Stephen's cousin, and laird of the clan. When she married Stephen, Kiernan had accused her of being nothing more than a gold digger, and had disapproved of their union.

Now in the wilds of Scotland, shocking secrets will be revealed, and the danger ultimately follows them. Together, they will solve the mystery, set a trap for those responsible, and have the chance to grab onto a once in a lifetime love.

This was a compelling story that I actually read several months ago, and have never forgotten. Enid and Stephen were both such likeable characters. Enid was strong, independent, pragmatic, and didn't want to feel anything for the man who hurt and abandoned her years ago. Stephen was warm, caring and passionate. Nothing like the man Enid remembers. To say their love scenes were intensely erotic would be an understatement. The premise of her nursing him back to health from the brink of death is always one I enjoy reading. Unlike most books from this genre, the plot twist in this book is not one you're likely to figure out, or at least I didn't. Plus the intrigue, which was very predominant in this story, was really well done. Ms. Dodd's trademark humor was virtually missing here as I recall, but that isn't a negative in this case. This book is exceptional, and will remain on my keeper shelf along with the rest of this series. It remains a favorite of mine.

Christina Dodd's latest book, Lost in Your Arms, is what I think of as a Victorian romance--a novel set in England (and in this case Scotland as well) during the reign of Victoria (more specifically, during the period when the Crimean war was about to start). It has humor, suspense, and love; it's well written; it has terrific characters... Some of the secondary characters are made a little hazy by the suspicion which falls on them, but many more are vivid.

The love scenes--you could call them sex scenes, but you would not be giving them their due--are very well done. Complicated emotions are involved: desire, well rendered, but also the need for comfort and refuge...

The plot plays out very logically from character and situation. In fact, I have only one quarrel with this book... So many new characters are introduced, and need to be integrated into the ongoing action, that the reader slows down to do beginning-of-a-novel work: learning who's who, what the characters are like, what the plot elements will be... The effect is heightened by changes in the main characters; the changes make sense, mostly, but the overall result is that this novel feels like two good books. It may not be a problem for you; I certainly hope not.

I suppose there are people who might not enjoy this book, people who want manly thrillers (not enough suspense, not enough testosterone), people who want sexy contemporaries (not contemporary, not very explicit sex), people who want "realistic" novels which start in the middle and end in the middle (not grim enough, not inconclusive enough). If you want to spend time with a quiet smile, enough suspenseful turns to keep your breath a little short, and enough loving to keep your breath a lot shorter, "Lost in Your Arms" is for you...

I rather found the title sort of out of place, but none the less, it made sense. The book was very well written and the characters are very likeable. If you actually havent read the summary in the dust jacket of the hardcover version of the book you will fall from your chair, when you find out the major secret that Dodd, gives her readers almost at the middle. In my personal opinion, i was dissapointed to have read the summary inside the dustjacket, but alas, i have learned my lesson.
Enid is a very nice, and strong woman. she has gone through a lot and had the misfurtune to stumble upon Steven Maclean, her husband, when she is very young (17). She has an infatuation with him, but she soon learns that he is nothing but a selfish party boy, who also happens to be very jelous of his cousin Kiernan Maclean who is the head of the Maclean clan in Scotland, and despises Enid thinking of her as a gold digger, but Steven leaves her and she then becomes a nurse and moves to the house of a very interesting old lady, which she actually appreciates, that is until she receives news, 10 years later, that her husband has been found, but is gravely injured and to top it all off, he has amnesia. The story is more complex, but thats the core of it. I tremendoulsly enjoyed it, and could barely put it down. Definitely recomend it. Very good twist as long as u dont read the summary inside the dustjacket, thus U HAVE BEEN WARNED!!! hehe

"Lost in Your Arms" by one of my personal favorite writers Christina Dodd is a romance novel that had me begging for more after I had finished reading the story! It was a delicious story that everyone should read (that is to say if you're into romance novels like I am!)