Title: The Devil Takes a Bride Series: Cabot Sisters #2
Author: Julia London
Published: January 27, 2015
Genre(s): Romance: Historical
Page Count: 362
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:Once the toast of society, Grace Cabot and her sisters now await the shame of losing high status and fine luxuries upon the death of the Earl of Beckington. The dire circumstances are inevitable unless, of course, Grace's wicked plot to seduce a wealthy viscount into marriage goes off without a single hitch. But once a stolen embrace with the wrong man leads her to be discovered in the arms of Geoffrey, the Earl of Merryton, her plan takes a most unexpected—and scorching—twist.
Governed by routine and ruled by duty, Geoffrey had no desire for a wife before he succumbed to Grace's temptation. Though his golden-haired, in-name-only bride is the definition of disorder, he can't resist wanting her in every way. But once her secrets meet his, society might consider their lives to be ruined beyond repair…while Geoffrey might just see it as a new beginning.
The title of this book was supposed to be The Fall of Grace, which is much more appropriate, seeing that the new title is both unoriginal and not fitting for the male lead, who is shy and reserved and far from the Alpha Rogue/Rake that tends to dominate historical romance. Terrible title change, seriously. The Devil Takes a Bride? How cliché.
Otherwise, this was okay. I picked it up only because I read a review and found out that the male lead, Jeffrey, has OCD, which is different and interesting enough to be worth my time. I appreciate that Julia London is willing to try different things with her romance, and I thought that the mental health aspects (Grace’s mother has what appears to be dementia or Alzheimers) were fairly well handled, though obviously OCD and Alzheimers weren’t well understood in the early 19th century.
Aside from that, however, The Devil Takes a Bride was only a so-so romance. I don’t like London’s prose very much—she uses the same adjectives over and over to the point of redundancy, and the characterization and romance didn’t stand out very well. I didn’t “buy into” this book as I would have liked. Jeffrey’s preference toward tame(ish) s/m sex wasn’t to my taste either, though I think it’s interesting to note that of the two romances I’ve read dealing with an OCD character, both tended toward that lifestyle. (That correlation is worth researching at a later date, perhaps.) Even so, the sex in this book isn’t particularly steamy; I didn’t buy into Jeffrey and Grace’s chemistry much at all.
But, overall, I think this will be a forgettable book. Nothing, except for Jeffrey’s OCD, stood out as being well-done. Curiosity led me to pick up The Devil Takes a Bride, and though it was an interesting experiment, I don’t count it a major success. Unfortunately, this was not my type of romance.
