The Stole Bride
Brenda Joyce
HQN, Oct 2006, $6.99
ISBN: 0373771843

In 1818 Ireland, Eleanor de Warenne is about to marry Peter Sinclair, but instead of her fianc she thinks of her love Sean O'Neill, who vanished four years ago just after she kissed him. He was the boy she grew up with when their widowed parents married. Though she told her father that he should make her a proper match, which he did, Eleanor wonders if she made an error as she needs to know whether Sean is dead as most people assume. Still three hundred people have arrived in the towns of Adare and nearby Limerick for the ceremony so in spite of her misgivings she will not dishonor her family.

As if by magic Sean appears out of thin air. He pleads with Eleanor to hide him, which she does as he explains he has been incarcerated and just escaped prison with his enemy in hot pursuit. Rested, Sean plans to leave, but Eleanor in her wedding dress forces him to take her with him. As the hardened Sean finds his heart melting for the former tomboy he has always loved, he knows he must prove his innocence if they are to share a life together as he thought when he first met the infant female brat he knew somehow was his destiny.

The latest de Warenne Regency era romance (see The Masquerade and The Prize) is a wonderful suspense thriller starring an alpha female and a mentally battered male who suffers from a form of battle fatigue syndrome. The storyline is loaded with non-stop action (a trademark of Ms. Joyce), but belongs to the lead couple especially the courageous heroine. The Stole Bridge grips the audience from the onset when a doubting Eleanor finds the reason for her misgivings alive, but not well and in need of help.

Harriet Klausner