Then Comes Marriage [Hardcover]

Kasey Michaels (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 2002

Revenge Never Tasted So Sweet Stumbling home after a night of carousing, Brady James is suddenly attacked, thrown into the Thames, and left for dead. He manages to escape, and vows revenge on his would-be assassins. Hatching a plan to fake his own death, he masquerades by day as cousin Gawain, the fool, and transforms himself by night into his own ghost in an attempt to frighten the suspects into a confession. With the help of Regina Bliss, a girl Brady is convinced is somehow related to his "death," the two work to right the wrongs of the past. As they spend more time together, Brady realizes that Regina might be the most challenging puzzle he has to solve.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 354 pages
• Publisher: Warner Books, Inc. (2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0739422189
• ISBN-13: 978-0739422182
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,594,632 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An Engaging Romp in the Tradition of Georgette Heyer, January 26, 2002

By 

Michael Weber "fairportfan" (Atlanta) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Then Comes Marriage (Mass Market Paperback)

A Little Personal History to Begin, or, Why Is a Middle-Aged Male Reviewing Rgency Romances?

When i was twenty (which was rather more than half my life ago) and stationed at the Naval Shipyard at Norfolk, i read an article in a science-fiction fanzine about Georgette Heyer, a british author of romances. The article included a rather fractured but hilarious plot-summary of a book entitled "Sylvester, or, the Wicked Uncle." I, being bored, checked the Navy Exchange's book racks and discovered a Hayer book entitled "The Talisman Ring", read it, and was hooked. ((It was some years later before i found a copy of "Sylvester", which proved to be even more gloriously silly and complex in plot than the article i had read had implied...))

Anyway, having read every Regency or Georgian romance and all of the historical novels the late Ms Heyer published (her mysteries are a different and, i'm afraind, unfathomable, thing entirely), i came to the conclusion that she basically wrote two types of story: Romps and Sweets, as i called them.

Sweets were iminently readable, consisting primarily of relatively lowkey action and devastatingly-drawn observations of society and drawing room wit/comedy of manners writing.

Romps had the comedy of manner, but usually also featured wilder elements, such as gender swaps between brother and sister in order to hide in plain sight, military officers taking over the opeation of a country tollgate on a whim to discover where the missing gatekeeper is, abductions of various sorts for various purposes, smuggling and various other nafarious activities, a young woman married to a man she'd never seen till fifteen minutes before and thenm widowed less than an hour afterward, and murders, duels and fisticuffs of various and sundry sorts. And love stories.

So what, you ask, does that have to do with a review of a Kasey Michaels novel? Just that this is a Regency Romp that is *almost* as good as one of Heyer's.

And *almost* as good as Georgette Heyer is readable indeed.

There are, in fact, familiar elements of Heyeresque plot scattered througout this book -- and at least one neat little bit of dialog that my wife and i are both sure is a tongue-in-cheek reference to Heyer's "These Old Shades", possibly the best of her romps.

Brady James, a typical Heyeresque heroic non-pareil, is attacked and thrown, weighted, into the Thames to drown, barely escaping with his life.

Arranging with friends to fake his own funeral, he retreats to his country house to recuperate and to plot the discovery and punishment of whoever tried to do him in.

He suspects that the attack may have something to do with his enquiries into the background of a Miss Regina Bliss, a young lady apparently incapable of telling the truth when an outrageous lie will do better who was rescued from the streets by friends of his in a previous book.

As he recuperates, he and Miss Bliss work out a scheme in which he will be his own foppish distant cousin, newly returned from France with his inheritance of Brady's title and estates and she will be his ward. Together, they will discover his own attackers; and Miss Bliss, who has an agenda of her own, will also look for revenge on old enemies of her own whom Brady knows nothing of.

And, as anyone can predict, though the path of True Love will hardly run smooth, it will happen.

Lots of fun, well worth the attention of anyone who likes Heyer and has run out of her books.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Cardboard Characters and a Snail-like Plot, August 24, 2003

By 

Trisha A. Howell "Howell Canyon Press author" (Los Angeles, CA, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Then Comes Marriage (Mass Market Paperback)

Kasey Michaels has a witty style that almost manages to win over the reader. I say almost because, unfortunately, her sense of humor does not make up for the lack of character development and slow pace that characterizes Then Comes Marriage.

Brady James, the Earl of Singleton, is attacked on the streets of Regency London, beaten, wrapped in chains and cast into the Thames. But Brady lives and spends the rest of the novel closing in on his would-be killers. By his side is penniless actress Regina Bliss, whose parents apparently died at the hands of Brady's assailants. With romantic sparks flying, Brady and Regina team up, along with Regina's traveling player friends, to expose the villains. To amusing effect, Brady impersonates his fictitious cousin Gawain Caradoc, an effeminate dandy whose ridiculous clothing and wimpy manner soon becomes a joke that's beaten to death.

It's hard to stay interested in the story because Brady and Regina are given almost no inner life until very late and then not enough. The plot drags slowly on, and then the reader is never given a credible reason why the villains tried to kill Brady; he'd uncovered nothing when asking questions about Regina's past (the motive or rather pretext for his attack).

Then Comes Marriage shows that even fairly entertaining banter cannot save a story whose characters and plot never achieve a feeling of reality.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars engaging historical romance, December 26, 2001

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Then Comes Marriage (Mass Market Paperback)

Feeling pity when Viscount Willoughby Rutland and his wife Abby saw the innocent looking Regina Bliss begging for spare change outside the theater, they hired her as a maid. When Earl Bradley James sees Regina working for the Rutlands, he asks her what brought her to such a crisis?

Regina, an actress, relates her tale of woe, but Bradley does not believe her. He makes a few inquiries and draws the attention of the wrong people. Soon three aristocrats abduct Bradley and toss him into the Thames to die. He survives and devices an ingenious plan to flush out the culprits with Regina's assistance as she too has a score to settle with these thugs. As they work together to catch a killer, they fall in love, but a relationship will have to wait to see if they survive their endeavor.

Adored by readers for her Regency romances, Kasey Michaels provides her audience with her best work to date in THEN COMES MARRIAGE. The relationship between the lead couple is hilarious due to their witty repartee that camouflages their true feelings for one another. Also amusing is the straight-laced Brady takes on the persona of Gawain Caradoc, a frivolous dandy so that he can move freely among the Ton. This is more than just a strong regency; this tale is an engaging historical romance that should be on everyone's short list.

Harriet Klausner