Devil's Bride

by Rachelle Edwards

romance

Genres: Historical Romance

336 pages, Paperback

First published February 12, 1976

About the author

Brenda Castle
aka
Georgina Ferrand and Rachelle Edwards

Reviews

[Naksed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure.
Men love in haste but they detest at leisure.



And that is exactly what the hero of Rachelle Edwards' Devil's Bride has done at leisure for more than three decades, taking pleasure in his hateful plan of revenge for the wrong done to his family when he was still a child. That is why, when he chooses the young, pampered, beautiful, headstrong heroine of the story as his bride, he laughs about it with his mistress, excited as he is to break his future bride down as he would one of his wild fillies. I hated him so much at this moment, that I did not think he could ever recover and as I predicted, the rest of the story did not do much to redeem him in my eyes.

Granted, the heroine did not start out wearing a halo either. Aside from being a spoiled, entitled member of the aristocracy, I was still taken aback when she was described in her introductory paragraph as someone who "carried the riding whip in both her hands and it looked as if she were ready to lash out with it at any moment, as she had been known to do on occasions."



However, given the formidable adversary planning to unleash destruction on her, I was rooting for her strong spirit to save her from his wrath.

Unfortunately, for me, the follow-up to this volcanic set-up was underwhelming. Aside from flinging a few objets d'art against the wall of her matrimonial chateau, on her part, and some forced seductions peppered with sarcastic repartees, on his part, the conflict between them seem to flicker down into ashes rather quickly. The heroine falls under the spell of her captor husband, and her role as chatelaine of a crumbling castle, in the matter of days, because TRAITOROUS BODY. And the hero, despite being so vile at the outset, kind of lost steam against this meek victim and did not deign to further humiliate her with his nasty mistress. The protagonists of Christine Monson's Stormfire should have been giving these two lessons on how to REALLY battle it out.

Despite the tension kind of lagging in the second half of the book, and the conclusion rather "unicorn and rainbow" implausible, I overall liked the author's crisp, elegant writing style, and I am very interested in reading some of her other books, if I manage to get my hands on them.

[Mermarie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can't complain about this one at all, however it was mediocre and predictable, at best. Oh well, what the hell; you don't know me, unless my fits of PMSy rage are present!

The only thing that rubbed me raw was that the mistress of the Duke had spent years dedicated to him with the notion she'd eventually be with him. It figures, you'd put 10+ years into a man and he leaves you for some girl barely out of the school room and he now calls you a whore & tries to strangle you! What was even a lower blow, was that the freakin' author threw the mistress under the bus, literally--and broke her down completely--even suffered from a seizure due to his 'goodbye' speech. I guess she was so overwrought with hurt and anguish at losing someone who wouldn't even freakin' MARRY HER, used her up, and even jeered at her for her hairstyle at the very end! ...Yeah, something tells me the romance is dead in that relationship, but seriously; why does she have to become an invalid and suffer, so that the hero/heroine can have a HEA??? She spent ALL of her pretty years on this feckin' bastard who just tries to literally kill her in the end, if she doesn't tell him where his new ride & her beau are going!! I wasn't so convinced the mistress was so deserving of that ending. :|

The openlibrary.org conversion was terrible, but I managed to, all in all, glean the premise of the story. Too bad the bedroom scenes were oh so conveniently left out during their poor digitizing skills, though. :| After the initial clothes tearing, it faded to black. Ughhh!! Now I'll need to buy the paperback. XD

[Lisa Montgomery · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a convoluted tale of a spoiled heroine, a dark foreboding hero, and a long-held chance for revenge against the heroine's family by the duke.
I found the change in point of view in part three abrupt and disruptive to the story line.

[BURMA · Rating 3 out of 5]

En los libros de Rachelle Edwards se pasa del odio al amor de manera brusca y sin transición. Ese es el toque de la casa!

[Alissa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Meh. Cheesy. Not totally believable. A "fast food" read...not much to think about...

[Su · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beginning was very well developed. Writing is easy and fast paced.
Ending, however, is too abrupt.

[Sarah Mac]

NTS: Georgina Ferrand pseudo.