Book Review: The Wedding - by Julie Garwood

Synopsis: The Wedding is the second novel in a 2-part series of medieval romances by Julie Garwood. Connor MacAlister, Highland laird of the MacAlister clan, has vowed revenge for his father's death at the hands of rival clan MacNare. When he learns of Laird MacNare's plans to marry an English bride, Connor steals the girl away before they can wed and marries her himself. His new bride, Brenna, is none too pleased to be marrying him, but decides to give the marriage a fair chance. Poor Brenna faces a lot of challenges in making the marriage work, including an EXTREMELY bossy husband, mean and lecherous in-laws, and her own confusing emotions.

This is the sequel to The Bride, which was a GREAT book. This novel, however, was not nearly as enchanting as its predecessor. The story kind of winds along, nothing spectacular, but then the last 50 pages or so are pretty intense. The ending was very satisfying and I did get quite caught up in it. I guess my real hangup was Connor's character. He is so very stubborn and callous. He is constantly saying and doing things that are so unbelievably inconsiderate and sometimes downright cruel to Brenna, that it's difficult to like him very much. Of course, part of his character is that he has vowed never to fall in love, because his father's dying words were that a broken heart is the worst thing ever (way to go, dad). He does eventually come to accept his love for his wife, but lordy it takes a lot to get him there.

Brenna's really pretty nice, though. She's pretty funny at times and has some endearing quirks, but she's not as spirited or engaging as Jaimie was in The Bride. I found myself liking the secondary characters (Connor's two best friends) almost more than the main characters. Quinlan and Crispin are funny and often insightful in the way they show loyalty to Brenna while teasing Connor about his feelings for her. I was also pleased to see Alec and Jaimie from The Bride make extended appearances in this story.

My LibraryThing rating: 3 stars