Shelley Bradley - His Lady Bride

He was a legend on the battlefield, but Aric Neville, known throughout England as the White Lion, had had his fill of intrigue and bloodshed. So he threw down his sword and walked away, to live a solitary life, cultivating a reputation as a sorcerer. But his prized tranquility was shattered when the villagers brought him a bride. 
Gwenyth de Auburd was a raven-haired beauty too impudent to ignore and too tempting to resist. When the war raging around them sucked Aric into his past again, he also fought a losing battle against his undeniable desire for the luscious, willful maiden . . . only to learn that he had come to cherish as his wife.

Comment: One of my favorite tropes in romance is the enemies-to-lovers and all its subdivisions. This book in particular would feature a couple that besides not being very fond of one another when they first meet would also get on with the forced marriage plot, another one of my preferences if done right. Since this book was published in 2000, I was not expecting a lot of wit and uniqueness often seen in nowadays releases, but I suppose it can be complicated to add a lot of innovation in historical stories without making them unlikely or silly.

In this story we meet Aric, a warrior who is also an earl and someone tired of fighting and innocent people dying because of the more powerful and their ruling. After being disappointed with his king, at the end of yet another battle, he decides to let go of his past and becomes a sort of hermit at an isolated cottage.

The problem is that nearby the most important figure faces the consequences of a drought, which is compromising the harvest and the economy of the villagers. To find a way, he forces his niece to wed Aric, because he got a reputation of being magical after domesticating a wolf. In comes Gwyneth, and they can't seem to see eye to eye when they meet. 

With some adventures and politics in the way, will they find enough common ground to fall in love and be each other's strength?

This is another book that has been in the pile for around 10 years... it was written by an author mostly known as Shayla Black.

I must say some elements in this book were really silly and almost comical. Thankfully, the author did try her hand on seriousness by finding a medieval point in time that isn't often seen in romance (Richard III reign) and used several details to give depth to her story. I'd say the problem is that there's isn't enough balance in the plot to make it strong from start to finish and probably there was a slight under use of the possibilities that, emotionally, could have made this something even better.

The way the relationships are portrayed are a little too superficial. Especially the secondary characters don't seem to go beyond the most expected circumstances and a role to be played. The main couple has interesting situations between them but I was a little disappointed with the heroine who, realistically thinking is quite likely to have existed (being cocky of her position in life at times and vulnerable at others) but looking at how she behaves from the POV of this being a romance story, it was very difficult to like her.

I can understand this was even more stressed for her change of heart to be more obvious but I don't think the author paced the heroine's evolution well.

It seemed there wasn't much character development. The characters ended up doing what the reader has always known to be the right choices and although there's some comfort in this, it wasn't special enough for the story to feel more intriguing.

I'd say some of the best prospects were when the opposed couple had to go to Aric's family estate and that is when Gwyneth found out the truth about him. I thought things could become seriously intricate and emotionally more complex with the add-on of Aric's insecure younger brother and his ex fiance turned stepmother to the relationship he had with his wife. 

The problem is that the potential issues or alliances that could have arisen from this weren't given focus point. Instead, we had to keep seeing both Aric and Gwyneth mope around about what they thought they should do and why they thought the other one was in the marriage for something else not love, while indeed they were already in love with each other. Well, or so they said, as I don't think we actually saw a believable falling in love relationship.

My favorite aspect of the book was how Aric's ethics were a key element of the whole thing. It was quite good I could cheer for the hero and his position in life but his more "negative" actions as a fighter were clearly not highlighted... still, it's always good that the personal doubts the hero has can be linked with his personality and not there just to fill a gap. So sad he was counterbalanced with such a childish (in behavior and some thinking) heroine.

All things considered, this was not a bad novel and I did feel interested in several moments to the point of not wanting to let go of the book for other chores. But thinking about it as a whole, I wouldn't say it went beyond average for me nor when compared with other historicals I preferred.

Grade: 5/10