Review: The Hostage Bride by Jane Feather

I finished this book last night, while watching my Dawgs get beat by Clemson.  The copy I read was a Kindle book which I purchased with my own money.  I bought it because my mother-in-law had given me the third in the Bride Trilogy by Jane Feather in a load of books she was getting rid of several years ago.  Not being one to let good books go to another home, I snagged a whole shopping bag full of them.  And, of course, I can't read the third in a trilogy without starting at the beginning!  I didn't know the genre when I bought the book from Amazon, but I kind of figured it was a romance novel.  I am not a HUGE romance reader, but I do like a good, dirty novel every once in a while.

The book is about Portia Worth, bastard daughter of ne'er-do-well Jack Worth, unacknowledged son of the House of Granville.  The Granvilles have been feuding with the House of Decatur for years, ever since Cato Granville and Rufus Decatur were young boys, and Cato saw his father take his own life, rather than submit to the Decaturs.  When Jack dies, his last request is that Cato make sure his daughter has a place in Castle Granville.  Portia is a rough and tumble girl, a tomboy, not accustomed to civilized society, whose only wish is to be a soldier someday.  During a botched kidnapping attempt, Decatur thugs grab Portia, instead of her cousin Olivia, and she becomes a hostage of the House of Decatur.  And then, of course, she falls in love with her captor.  And there is sex.  Will she return to the Granvilles or stay with the House of Decatur?  Will her family ever forgive her?

I did like the book, and I'm giving it three out of five Whatevers.  It's not high literature, but it was a quick read and a nice bit of fluff in between more substantial reads.  There were many typos which annoyed me (seriously, an apostrophe every now and then would not kill you), and I was a little squicked by not only the Stockholm Syndrome-ness of it all, but also by the next-door-to-abusive behavior of the brutish Rufus Decatur.  But overall, I liked Portia and her ability to go against the social mores of the 17th century.  The development of the friendship between the girls seemed a bit fast and inorganic, but I'm able to suspend my disbelief quite a bit in order to get through a book.  Recommended for romance-lovers, but not recommended for feminists or those who are easily offended by sex scenes.

2013-8