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Three Brides for Three Brothers
John, Rick and Derrick Underwood are the most handsome trio of brothers in town and it takes three exceptional women to convince them to settle down.
For Jodie, marrying John seemed exciting and romantic at the time but the reality of life is proving too much. Jodie loves her husband but she doesn't know how much more she can take of his dishonest ways.
Rick's marriage to Laraine is filled with love and adventure; their life is blissful - until one day it delivers a cruel blow. Everything begins to unravel and Laraine isn't sure she's strong enough to survive.
Dee is smitten with her husband, Derrick. He does all he can to provide for her so when he's sent away to sea, she knows she will be all right. But suddenly she stops hearing from Derrick - where is he?
From the 1950s all the way through to the 1980s, Three Brides For Three Brothers is a nostalgic story of love and loyalty during the most testing of times.
For Jodie, marrying John seemed exciting and romantic at the time but the reality of life is proving too much. Jodie loves her husband but she doesn't know how much more she can take of his dishonest ways.
Rick's marriage to Laraine is filled with love and adventure; their life is blissful - until one day it delivers a cruel blow. Everything begins to unravel and Laraine isn't sure she's strong enough to survive.
Dee is smitten with her husband, Derrick. He does all he can to provide for her so when he's sent away to sea, she knows she will be all right. But suddenly she stops hearing from Derrick - where is he?
From the 1950s all the way through to the 1980s, Three Brides For Three Brothers is a nostalgic story of love and loyalty during the most testing of times.
479 pages, Paperback
First published February 14, 2013
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12 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 24, 2018
Oh dear, where shall I start? My first proper saga in a very long time and my first ever encounter with Elizabeth Waite. A disappointing read, 'Three Brides' left me frustrated and keen to reach the finish line. An easy, safe read, this homely story was just a little bit too safe, a little bit too “twee” for my liking.
Let me start off with the blurb. Does the job at selling the story, right? Well, it’s not really until the last 150 pages do you really start to see these elements of the story take off, particularly for Dee and Laraine. Even then, it still quite loosely follows the blurb, with the lack of detail making it seem to me that pages had fallen out of the book or someone had moved my bookmark around! Waite’s writing does not finish plot threads and she seems to just move on to the next part of the story without giving a resolution to other fragments. This, tied in with the misleading blurb, made the plot fragmented and not hanging together very well. Details are omitted – suddenly we are reading Jodie’s reaction to Laraine’s news when on the previous page, everything was fine and everyone was happily drinking tea. It was frustrating – I don’t expect every single breath to be described in a story but serious events? Come on, that’s what helps the story move forwards.
This is definitely a true saga. Everyone is all friends and the wives of the brothers are very close. There is a strong sense of family and friends and everyone pulls together to help each other out. Not quite a reality we see today but it certainly was heart-warming. It was rather funny on how many occasions the characters were sitting and drinking tea (quite often with an alcoholic top-up!) and I guess maybe that is what defines us as a country. It did get a bit predictable after a while, however.
Despite what the blurb says, the novel is not firmly set in history. There are no markers at all to tell you the year and there are very few cultural references. Whilst it is supposed to be set over thirty years, this is unclear. Coupled with the fast-forwarding of the plot, it would have been helpful to have some markers at the start of the chapter to indicate how much time had passed. At times I felt like I was trying to decode the time-frame and it was only until references had been made to the age of the twins, did I feel I knew where I stood.
There are a range of characters in this novel – at least six key ones! Each character offers something different to the story and each provoked a different reaction from me. Jodie is a very strong woman and always puts everybody else’s needs before hers. I think this juxtaposes her own strength and wanted her to stand up and consider herself once in a while. John – I wanted to throttle him and hated it when he appeared in the story. His arrogance really wound me up! Derrick’s controlling nature towards Dee is intended to be romantic but I found it creepy and uncomfortable. Secondly, the fact that Dee was so quick to forfeit her blossoming career for marriage was disappointing – she happily and readily lost her own identity to simply become a wife and mother.
Lots of adventures happen to these characters and I think Waite should have focused on this, rather than rooting the plot to UK soil. With so many of the characters travelling, extra depth would have been created through following John in Hong Kong or switching the narrative to Laraine in Dubai. This was seriously missing and as a reader you were only provided with little snippets from letter extracts. I think this would have allowed the plot to progress more confidently and also made it less “safe” by focusing on easier characters.
I would read another saga but I’m not too impressed with this book from Elizabeth Waite. I would happily give another of her books a go but this is not a great read. Easy to get through, I felt there were still a couple of hundred pages of plot missing.
Let me start off with the blurb. Does the job at selling the story, right? Well, it’s not really until the last 150 pages do you really start to see these elements of the story take off, particularly for Dee and Laraine. Even then, it still quite loosely follows the blurb, with the lack of detail making it seem to me that pages had fallen out of the book or someone had moved my bookmark around! Waite’s writing does not finish plot threads and she seems to just move on to the next part of the story without giving a resolution to other fragments. This, tied in with the misleading blurb, made the plot fragmented and not hanging together very well. Details are omitted – suddenly we are reading Jodie’s reaction to Laraine’s news when on the previous page, everything was fine and everyone was happily drinking tea. It was frustrating – I don’t expect every single breath to be described in a story but serious events? Come on, that’s what helps the story move forwards.
This is definitely a true saga. Everyone is all friends and the wives of the brothers are very close. There is a strong sense of family and friends and everyone pulls together to help each other out. Not quite a reality we see today but it certainly was heart-warming. It was rather funny on how many occasions the characters were sitting and drinking tea (quite often with an alcoholic top-up!) and I guess maybe that is what defines us as a country. It did get a bit predictable after a while, however.
Despite what the blurb says, the novel is not firmly set in history. There are no markers at all to tell you the year and there are very few cultural references. Whilst it is supposed to be set over thirty years, this is unclear. Coupled with the fast-forwarding of the plot, it would have been helpful to have some markers at the start of the chapter to indicate how much time had passed. At times I felt like I was trying to decode the time-frame and it was only until references had been made to the age of the twins, did I feel I knew where I stood.
There are a range of characters in this novel – at least six key ones! Each character offers something different to the story and each provoked a different reaction from me. Jodie is a very strong woman and always puts everybody else’s needs before hers. I think this juxtaposes her own strength and wanted her to stand up and consider herself once in a while. John – I wanted to throttle him and hated it when he appeared in the story. His arrogance really wound me up! Derrick’s controlling nature towards Dee is intended to be romantic but I found it creepy and uncomfortable. Secondly, the fact that Dee was so quick to forfeit her blossoming career for marriage was disappointing – she happily and readily lost her own identity to simply become a wife and mother.
Lots of adventures happen to these characters and I think Waite should have focused on this, rather than rooting the plot to UK soil. With so many of the characters travelling, extra depth would have been created through following John in Hong Kong or switching the narrative to Laraine in Dubai. This was seriously missing and as a reader you were only provided with little snippets from letter extracts. I think this would have allowed the plot to progress more confidently and also made it less “safe” by focusing on easier characters.
I would read another saga but I’m not too impressed with this book from Elizabeth Waite. I would happily give another of her books a go but this is not a great read. Easy to get through, I felt there were still a couple of hundred pages of plot missing.
July 14, 2017
One of the those family sagas where the female lead will master all problems thanks to the enviable support of her friends and family. A real feel good about yourself book set on the English south coast. It claims to track the history of a family through the changing world of Postwar Britain, but it is hard to pin things down, as the historical detail is left very vague. You get a reference to TV starting so we start somewhere in the fifties and will end in the late 70s...but it is all so vague and all outside trouble is very much of little concern. A bit disappointing.
September 1, 2018
I really enjoyed this story about the 3 Underwood boys and their families. I guess the story was mostly about Jodie and Dee Underwood.
September 17, 2022
Lovely read
I enjoyed this book about the three friends karting the three brother's. 🙂 all going off to work in the same field
I enjoyed this book about the three friends karting the three brother's. 🙂 all going off to work in the same field
March 6, 2017
Excellent book
I loved this book from start to finish. Couldn't put it down. A real homely and easy to read book..The characters were very real and the storyline couldn't have been better.
I loved this book from start to finish. Couldn't put it down. A real homely and easy to read book..The characters were very real and the storyline couldn't have been better.
March 22, 2013
From the 1950s all the way through to the 1980s, Three Brides For Three Brothers is a nostalgic story of love and loyalty during the most testing of times.
Three brides, Delia known as Dee, Judith known as Jodie and Laraine. Three brothers, John, Derrick and Richard.
Dee gets to know Jodie through their job in a haridressing salon where Dee is a Saturday girl. While Dee is babysitting one night so Jodie can go out with husband John, his brother Derrick calls in and before long Dee is smitten.
After getting to know each other a little bit, Derrick goes back to sea and Dee doesn't hear from him for over a year! All the brothers are seafarers.
In the meantime, Laraine has met and married the other brother Richard after a whirlwind romance.
What follows is a story that focus's on the girls relationships with each other and the ups and downs they have with being married to the brothers.
John is a bit of a cad and only cares about himself but all Jodie cares is their children and earning enough money to give their sons a nice upbringing.
This wasn't a bad book, it delved quite deeply into how the characters coped with certain situations.
The pace of the book ambled along quite nicely until three quarters of the way through when there was a few twists followed by some conclusions. After such a slow start to the book I felt the ending was a bit rushed and the twists could have been brought forward to liven the book up a bit.
The charaters were all believable although some things that the brother's mum, Marian did were a bit far fetched so it slightly spoilt it for me.
I wasn't too fussy on the title of the book either, when people found out what I was reading I had a few quips as in "Oh, seven brides for seven brothers is it". For some reason I found that very irksome!
I rate this book 3 out of 5 stars.
Three brides, Delia known as Dee, Judith known as Jodie and Laraine. Three brothers, John, Derrick and Richard.
Dee gets to know Jodie through their job in a haridressing salon where Dee is a Saturday girl. While Dee is babysitting one night so Jodie can go out with husband John, his brother Derrick calls in and before long Dee is smitten.
After getting to know each other a little bit, Derrick goes back to sea and Dee doesn't hear from him for over a year! All the brothers are seafarers.
In the meantime, Laraine has met and married the other brother Richard after a whirlwind romance.
What follows is a story that focus's on the girls relationships with each other and the ups and downs they have with being married to the brothers.
John is a bit of a cad and only cares about himself but all Jodie cares is their children and earning enough money to give their sons a nice upbringing.
This wasn't a bad book, it delved quite deeply into how the characters coped with certain situations.
The pace of the book ambled along quite nicely until three quarters of the way through when there was a few twists followed by some conclusions. After such a slow start to the book I felt the ending was a bit rushed and the twists could have been brought forward to liven the book up a bit.
The charaters were all believable although some things that the brother's mum, Marian did were a bit far fetched so it slightly spoilt it for me.
I wasn't too fussy on the title of the book either, when people found out what I was reading I had a few quips as in "Oh, seven brides for seven brothers is it". For some reason I found that very irksome!
I rate this book 3 out of 5 stars.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews