Saturday, July 21, 2012

REVIEW: Royal Weddings, an anthology

Title: Royal Weddings
Author: Stephanie Laurens, Gaelen Foley, Loretta Chase
Genre: Romance
Publisher: Avon Impulse
Format: e-book
# of pages: 77
Source: bought from Amazon
Links: goodreads

Summary:
(from goodreads)

You are cordially invited
To help celebrate the Royal Wedding of
Prince William to Catherine Middleton
As we present a 77 page original anthology
Written by three utterly wonderful authors!

Stephanie Laurens' The Wedding Planner: Lady Margaret is proud plan the ton's most important nuptuals—including that of a prince. But it's Lady Margaret who falls in love . . . with dashing Gaston Devilliers!

Gaelen Foley's Ever After: How scandalous! Eleanor Monford, Countess of Archer, is in love with her own husband. And as Princess Charlotte of England weds Prince Leopold, Eleanor's "secret" is about to come out.

Loretta Chase's The Jilting of Lord Rothwick: On the eve of Queen Victoria's wedding to Prince Albert, the Marquess of Rothwick learns his fiancée, Barbara Findley, has broken their engagement! So he desperately rides out of London to seek her out . . . and to win her back.
Review:
Okay, this is an anthology, so the stories are going to lack a bit of depth.  But still.  The longest of the stories, which could have had so much more going on, was the one I liked least.  I'm going to have to rate these separately because I liked them on such different scales.

The Wedding Planner, which took up more than half of the 77 pages in this anthology, could not hold my attention.  This one is about Lady Margaret, aka Meg, and Gaston Devilliers, a man At the beginning of the short story, Meg seemed to strongly dislike Gaston, calling him a fiend and a pest.  She had also said that it was unfair her fiancé had perished at war, but Gaston had lived.  Then all of a sudden, she knows what he's thinking and is entertaining the idea of marriage to him.  Sure, there were many scenes with them in it, but really no interaction.  I didn't really sense any true romantic connection between and their romance was just not believable to me.  Also, just a side note, the name Gaston reminds me of Disney's Beauty and the Beast movie, lol.
Rating: ★★

Ever After was about Eleanor, who is in love with her husband, which is not done in the ton.  However, she keeps her feelings in and her husband doesn't know.  She thinks he's cheating, and tries to keep in her feelings about it because she knows that it a married man's prerogative to keep a mistress.  But she does snap and her husband, who had been wondering why she was upset with him, notices.  He puts her fears  to ease and reveals that he loves her too.  Even though this was really short, I really liked this one.  It had an "aww" factor for me, and I'm really happy there was a happily ever after, as the title suggests. :)
Rating: ★★★★

The Jilting of Lord Rothwick starts with Rothwick having already on the doorstep of his ex-fiancée.  It wasn't that hard to find her.  From the title and little summary, I thought she had fled somewhere, but no...she's at home.  He asks for an explanation and she just tells him she doesn't think they're suitable anymore.  Not knowing what more he can do, he leaves and their engagement is broken.  In reality, she loves him but doesn't want to be the only one in love.  In the end, she can't leave it be, because she can't live without him, so she goes after him.  This one was a bit too short as well, but I liked it and am glad they get their happy ever after too.
Rating: ★★★

I don't know, for some reason I was able to feel a connection between the couples in the last two stories, but not the couple in Laurens' story.  I haven't read anything by Gaelen Foley or Loretta Chase before, but I'm going to be looking into some of their novels now. :)

Overall: ★★★

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