Requested Review: Kat Martin - Rule's Bride

Mass Market Paperback; 363 pages
Publisher: Mira Books - April 27, 2010
ISBN-10: 0778327744
ISBN-13: 978-0778327744
Genre: Historical Romance
Book: Book Three in Bride Trilogy
Main Characters: Rule Dewar & Violet Griffin
On sale at: The Bookdepository Store

Summary:
Unrepentant rake Rule Dewar is living the good life when a most surprising event occurs - he falls in love with his wife.

After their strategic "marriage of commerce" three years ago, Rule quite forgot about Violet Griffin, the teenage heiress to a Boston manufacturing fortune. He simply spoke his vows, took over her father's business and returned to England to resume his usual pursuits: high-priced wine, high-stakes gambling and highborn women.

Yet when Violet, now a sophisticated woman, unexpectedly appears at Rule's London town house, husbandly duties no longer seem so odious - he can't wait to take his stunning bride to their marriage bed. Violet, however, is not so easily led: she has her own ideas and is seeking an annulment to marry another. But as Rule attempts to win her over, someone else is determined to frame him for murder and keep him out of the way for good..

Pearl’s review: The book starts with a prologue that sets up the story. In this prologue Rule Dewar is in America, making good on the promise, to his father on his deathbed, to build up business relationships with the colony. He has made a good life for himself in Boston and is on the verge of going back to England to run the English Branch of Griffin Manufacturing, the weapons factory he works for. When his employer, Howard Griffin asks him for a favor he can’t fathom it is to marry his young daughter to secure her future. Rule reluctantly agrees and sets of to England right after the marriage thinking that would be it.

The rest of the book takes place 3 years later when Violet Griffin wants an annulment from the man she married as decreed by her dying father. She heads over to England to find the man who married and abandoned her to free herself for marriage to another man. Rule wants to stay married because of the promise to both his and her father but also because of the benefits business wise. When Rule convinces Violet to give him a month to prove being married to him isn't that bad, a string of events leads them to something more meaningful than a marriage of convenience.

Rule is a womanizer, with an eye for business, loyal to his friends and family and a bit of a male chauvinist. I had a bit of trouble with Rule in the beginning. It was clear the marriage was not of importance to him and Violet was just a means to get his foot into her father's company. He didn't even keep his promise of making their marriage real after two years and now that Violet shows up a year overdue to end the marriage with an annulment herself, he acts all indignant and as if he thinks the marriage is important.

Violet is sweet but fiery and full of determination, she speaks her mind and can be a bit headstrong at times. I’m not fond of very young heroines and 19 years is on the fringes of what I can handle but Kat Martin made it work for me for most of this book. There were points were she acted her age and wasn’t as determined as she’d been made out to be. She sleeps with Rule, ruining her opportunity for an annulment but doesn't own up to it and puts all the blame on Rule. Her insistence that Rule only wants to stay married for his part in the business, portion in the company started to annoy me at one point.

For me this third and last installment in the Bride Trilogy was the least of the three. There were a few things that didn’t quite work for me and with all the anticipation build across the other two books I felt it fell a bit flat in comparison.

Both Violet and Rule acted unreasonable and a bit irrational at times and this kept me from completely sympathizing and empathizing with them and their issues. And the changes of heart they go through in order to get to the HEA felt a bit sudden and forced... The trademark suspense plot was there yet again and even if it was a predictable one it did liven the story up a bit and kept me reading despite that I didn’t completely click with the main characters.

In this trilogy Kat Martin has written the most interesting secondary characters that are able to intrigue as much as her main couples. It was no different in RULE’S BRIDE and I must honestly admit that in this case the secondary romance worked better for me than the main couple’s romance, for the reasons I stated earlier in this review. I was wondering from the start what was going to happen with the chemistry between Rule’s friend and Violet’s cousin and I was served promptly with a captivating secondary romance I truly enjoyed.

In the Bride Trilogy Kat Martin follows a certain vein in all three books that include the fulfillment of the individual promises the Dewar brothers made to their dying father, a suspense plot where the Oarsmen come to the rescue and offer their assistance, a seemingly impossible romance between the main characters and a lovely secondary romance. Yet despite the similarity and the repeated use of these elements, each book has a different and unique vibe and set-up. Though they can be read as stand-alone, together they form a coherent whole in which a full cast of both recurring and new characters plays the role they are given.

If you don’t mind a very young heroine and a hero that has a bit of male chauvinism going on, RULE’S BRIDE is a good and solid historical romance that wraps up the Bride Trilogy in a satisfying way.