The Sherbrooke Twins (Bride Series) [Mass Market Paperback]

Catherine Coulter (Author)

Book Description

Series: Bride Series | Publication Date: February 24, 2004

Bestselling author Catherine Coulter’s beloved Bride series continues with Jason and James Sherbrooke, handsome identical twins looking for love.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Those who are drawn to the humor and cozy family dynamics of Coulter's Bride series (The Sherbrooke Bride, etc.), starring the lovable Sherbrooke family, will relish this new installment, which focuses on dashing identical twins James and Jason. The twins have had their share of sexual escapades, and though they think they still have a few more years to sow their "wild oats," romance sneaks up on them. James finds himself drawn to his tomboy neighbor, Corrie, who transforms from duckling to swan for her first season in London. Meanwhile, Jason waltzes into love with the alluring and mysterious Judith McCrae. But the twins' romances are put on hold when someone tries to kill their father, Douglas. Suspicion revolves around a man named Georges Cadoudal, a French spy who died 15 years earlier. Douglas suspects that Cadoudal's children may be trying to seek revenge, but he doesn't know how to track them down. Those new to the Sherbrooke family may be baffled by the mystery surrounding Cadoudal, but they'll be thoroughly charmed by James and Corrie and the affectionate banter among the family members, though some of their gags grow old after a while. A clever surprise ending wraps up the mystery subplot neatly and will ensure that many readers return for the next entry in Coulter's Sherbrooke saga.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In her latest Bride series installment, Coulter presents two identically handsome twins, James and Jason Sherbrooke. James has been tormented by Corrie ever since she was three years old, and is hoping that she will no longer be a thorn in his side now that she's about to set off for her first Season in London, but when James discovers what a lovely young lady the hoydenish Corrie has become, he realizes he has a whole new set of problems. As though the new and improved Corrie isn't enough to contend with, someone is trying to kill James and Jason's father. The twins must find out who wants their father dead, but James is distracted by Corrie, and Jason finds himself thinking about the beautiful and charming Judith, the one woman who just might tempt him into giving up his rakish ways. Coulter whips up another madly romantic, supremely sexy adventure, rich with eccentric characters and the author's special brand of fanciful humor. John Charles
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Jove (February 24, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0515136549
• ISBN-13: 978-0515136548
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #221,994 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #21 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Romance > Authors, A-Z > ( C ) > Coulter, Catherine R.

More About the Author

Catherine Coulter is the author of the New York Times-bestselling FBI thrillers The Cove, The Maze, The Target, The Edge, Riptide, Hemlock Bay, Eleventh House, Blindside, Blowout, Point Blank, Double Take and TailSpin. She lives in northern California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Zzzzz, March 10, 2004

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Sherbrooke Twins (Bride Series) (Mass Market Paperback)

This is mediocre at best. I have read many works of Coulter's, and this simply is not among her greater novels. The back plot detracted from the love story of James and Corrie, and I never got a sense for why Jason loved Judith. I admit, the ending was very nice and sad, but it was too obvious a set up for a sequel. I'll read the sequel, of course, because I think Jason will prove to be the more compelling twin now that his heart has been broken already. My only disappointment is that James and Jessie Wyndham are going to be involved, apparently, and I hated the Valentine Legacy with a passion. Ugh. I just don't like those Wyndhams. Especially the Duchess. I could have sworn I'd scream if I read the word "ditty" one more time. Hopefully they won't figure too much into the novel. I guess my biggest complaint is that I wish I could have seen more of the romance developing and a more coherent back story. It was easy enough to see there was something shady about a certain handful of characters that I won't name so as to not spoil the novel for others, but it just left me flat. This was no Sherbrooke Bride or Scottish Bride. It was nice to see Alex and Douglas still happy together--but I still believe they would have booted that old woman out of the house much sooner than that. This novel was a nice attempt and a decent way to kill some time on an airplane, but little more than that. I wanted more of the twins than what I had received.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The Black Sheep of the Sherbrooke Family, May 22, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Sherbrooke Twins (Bride Series) (Mass Market Paperback)

Coulter's recent historical romances have been pretty half-hearted, when compared to her "classics," but this was a true low point.

This book, in short, has the flaws of her other work without any of the charms. These flaws include the strange, stilted dialogue which she seems to feel is endlessly witty (curses using animal parts, characters "hitting each other over the head" with zingers or suggestive asides, male characters insulting female characters' intelligence based on their "womens' parts," etc.) as well as the strange tendency towards sexual violence that Coulter has always been drawn to. Many of her erotic scenes over the years have been, effectively, rapes and the love scene in Sherbrooke Twins is no exception. While a little excess passion once in a while can be interesting, a lot starts looking kind of dark and unhealthy. Why does Coulter think her reader wants her heroes to turn every wedding night into a scary, sticky, sore, demeaning experience for her heroines? It's 2004-- it's okay for female characters, even regency females, to enjoy sex right off the bat now! They don't have to get through a gauntlet of pain and humiliation first. They don't have to get abused by hubby just so we can feel bad for them and then revel with them in hubby's guilty and sincere apology (and his generous peace offering of belated foreplay and tender lovin'). I just don't find that all that sexy time after time. In fact, I find it a little medieval and mysogynistic. Paging Dr. Freud!

You'll also find some overused Coulter phrases in this one, such as the infamous "fat as a stoat." Catherine, a stoat is a weasel. A weasel is a relatively thin animal. Why must you use this expression in every novel? Why the constant comparisons to animals in general? And I have to say, though cat racing is cute, and I love cats, why bring it up in every, single book-- even when there is no actual cat racing of any kind taking place?

Finally there is the problem that this book feels like both the Sherbrooke family annual Christmas letter "Dahling made a 1480 on her SAT's and Ryder got a big promotion at work!..." and an infomercial for the next book-- we're hardly interested in the characters of James and Corrie because they're fairly one-dimensional and we learn relatively little about them due to the fact that we're too busy wondering about Jason and worrying about our old friend Douglas. (And as it turns out, had Douglas ever had the opportunity to read any other Coulter regency, he could have figured out preeetty quickly who the "mole" in his household was-- to call the "twist" in this book unoriginal is no stretch.) That may, in fact, be the crux of the problem: the central crises in The Sherbrooke Twins have much more to do with the secondary characters than the primary ones. James and Corrie could have done with their own personal crisis to overcome, instead of an inherited one. We're a little more curious about Jason and his entirely-new dilemma than Corrie's/James' hand-me-down drama, and maybe I'm cynical but it seems like that's how Coulter meant it to be.

Because of the very leading ending, it seems pretty obvious that we'll be seeing the twins again soon. Maybe we'll actually get to know them (and Coriander) in the next novel, which will be less a sequel to this novel than a tardy conclusion, but I'm not going to rush to buy the book and find out.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Nothing but filler, February 29, 2004

By 

Kate Keane (Mass.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sherbrooke Twins (Bride Series) (Mass Market Paperback)

I suspect that Coulter's next book will be simply spectacular. Indeed, when it comes out, I may even find myself glad to have read this book, as it seems mainly to consist in providing backstory for what comes next. In the meantime however, I am sadly disappointed. Coulter had the makings of a real winner here, but between bringing us up to date on the last generation of Sherbrookes and setting up one of the youngsters for a story of his own, the love story of James and Corrie as well as the developing relationship between Jason and Judith, is left with very little substance. I have to give Coulter credit, for the denoument of the mystery subplot takes one by complete surprise, and the interplay between Corrie and James, what there is of it, is charming and amusing. These together almost make the book worth a read. Almost that is. . . but not quite.