Pink Heart Reviews
Stealing The Bride
Elizabeth Boyle
Avon, 2003, 373 pages
ISBN # 0-380-82090-0
Historical Romance, circa 1799
England
5.99 (US) 7.99 (CDN)
Reviewed By Erin
August 2004
The Marquis of Templeton or Temple for short is a riddle of a man. He is the trendsetter of his time, setting the fashions and mannerisms of the high societal ton with a flair and a flippancy that makes him a true dandy. He carries on as if he hasn’t a care in the world but therein lays a lie. He is actually a secret agent for the King of England and has been risking his life for years involved in espionage and rescues all over the continent. He is one of the best but as of late he has been getting reckless, taking risks that are unnecessary and unacceptable because he is heir to one of the most coveted titles in all England. He is to become the Duke of St once his grandfather expires. So when his superior sends him on a fool’s errand instead of the assignment he has been waiting for all his life, he begins to think there is more to this than meets the eye. Especially when that fool’s errand is saving a kidnapped spinster from becoming ruined against her will.
Diana Fordham is considered a spinster at her advanced age but she is in fact more attractive at the ripe age of twenty nine than most girls in their first debut. She is intelligent, a bit eccentric and hopelessly in love with Temple. She is determined to marry only one man and he has to be the man she loves even if all the cards are stacked against them.
There has been an underlying attraction between Temple and Diana for years but the closer Diana wants to get to Temple the more he distances himself from her. She was betrothed to his cousin Colin first, a betrothal that didn't last long when she found out that Temple was not the fop he pretended to be but one of England's best heroes. From then on she tried to devise plans to make him fall in love her for she had already fallen hard for him. Even though he is heir to a Dukedom, he is penniless and with the life of intrigue that he lives he is in constant danger. He refuses to be anything more to Diana for fear that she may be caught up in the whirlwind of his dangerous life. As much as it hurts Diana and him he must avoid her at all costs. He has been successful for ten years but that's all about to change.
One evening, while Temple is enjoying time at his club, Diana’s distraught father bursts in railing about a kidnapping. Diana had been keeping company with a bounder named Cordell. He is known for his bad habits of drinking and gambling and he is not the sort of man a Lady of quality associates with. Two other men in the club also hear of this and they vow they will bring Lady Diana back to London. Nettlestone and Pensum have been vying for her hand of late and they will not have their plans thwarted by a bounder like Cordell. The race is on. The first man to reach Diana and bring her back to London will have the honor of her hand. Temple is not about to get involved. He has no use for a wife and definitely not Diana but when his superior in the British Government makes him an ultimatum, he has no choice but to go after her. And so the fool’s errand begins but when he finally catches up with Diana he finds that there is more here than just a kidnapping and it is up to him to save Diana from a plot that no one thought possible.
The plot of this novel should be enough to keep you interested. She uses intrigue and conspiracy to keep the novel going but that doesn’t cover up the fact that the characters are not very well developed and the story is difficult to get into. It becomes confusing when the author talks about something that happened in the past with these two characters but you don’t find out what it is until later. Some authors do this brilliantly in a way that adds to the mystery but in this book it was distracting and hard to follow. That’s not to say this was a bad book, just not a particularly good one. I found it average in every way possible. The characters, the storyline and the writing style were all average and not very memorable.
