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Deception’s Bride is a very eventful read, with young love playing out its passionate game against the backdrop of an exotic environment.
Whoa, lets make a fresh start of this review. Every word in the above sentence is true, but it is still partially misleading. Sometimes words can lead us a merry chase, so lets look at what is really meant by the above sentence.
The environment is the island of Formosa (present-day Taiwan) during the Dutch colonization. There is also a brief period in London and a sojourn in America, not to mention the time spent traveling between these locations. Exotic refers to the Leni-Lenape (also known as Delaware) warrior Black Wolf who is the hero’s best friend as well as to the interludes with Malay headhunters and Chinese pirates. Backdrop refers to the degree to which the setting is described, in this case very casually.
Passionate, if not so visually described, is the love between Weylin, Lord Kingsland, and young and naive Donella – young and naive to the point of following a stranger into danger, because she saw him once a few years ago and has fantasized about him ever since. Passionate also refers to hot feelings of betrayal that are the consequence of deception and misunderstanding.
Very eventful is how I would define a read where the following happens within 135 pages:
- Donella is married off against her will to a nasty Dutchman
- Chinese pirates attack, forcing Donella and Weylin to flee
- A shipwreck
- Capture by Malay headhunters
- Escape and long trek through the jungle
- Capture by Chinese pirate
- Escape through the jungle
- Weylin kills Donella’s undesirable husband
- A shark attack
- Another Malay headhunter incident
- Escape on a British frigate
I could go on about the events, but we would run out of space quite quickly. The reason for all this activity can be summarized as follows: Unbeknownst to her, Weylin wants Donella’s green cloak, in order to bring it back to King Charles II.
The minus in the grade is due to some severe cases of sloppy language editing, quite apart from the plot editing, and two scenes that ranked high on my Ick Factor Scale. One of these concerned an orphaned baby monkey functioning as a stage prop for Donella’s desires for a baby with Weylin.
Would I recommend this book? I’m afraid not. I see Deception’s Bride more as a work-in-progress and I find it highly unfair to the author that it was published as-is. With tighter editing it could have been a fast and enjoyable read. But could have been is not the same as is.
Grade: D-
Book Type: Historical Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 24/06/99
Publication Date: 1998
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Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.