Bradley’s Bride by Kathleen Lawless

Action and Intrigue But Romance Fell Flat

Just like the first book of the series, this one is full of action and intrigue. In fact, at the couple from the first book’s wedding, which opens this book, there is quite the gun-fight kerfuffle. While there definitely was a lot going on in the book, I didn’t like the way that the romantic aspect was played out. Often in romances, the hero and heroine go back and forth about their feelings for each other and what to do about them (that’s the basis for romance books), it seemed extreme in this novel. For instance, at one point when it looks like the couple have to marry, the heroine decides that she can seduce him into loving her, and not long after, she’s thinking of how to get out of the marriage so she can run her own business in a different town (though she claims to have had feelings for him from afar for a long time). There is just too much of that kind of wild back and forth for both of the characters. I also thought that the blurb didn’t accurately portray the book. The blurb makes it seem as if the book is all about a forced betrothal or wedding. It isn’t really about that, and that issue is even germane until after the 40% mark of the book. The book continues the issues with the villain of the previous book, and my gut feeling tells me that this will be the case for the rest of the books in this series about the seven “brothers.” This book didn’t gel for me quite like the first one did, and I quite enjoyed that one. It was nice to see a little bit more of Laura and Brody, the heroine and the hero from the previous book, and their new life together as a married couple. While this book could be read as a stand-alone, you would miss much of the context about the brothers and the villain.