With His Ring (The Brides of Bath, #2) By Cheryl Bolen
A great story of the lengths a women will go to get her man, even if he’s determined to never, ever marry. I really enjoyed the escapades of Glee as a ‘fast women’ she made me laugh. Historical Romance, Regency Romance I read the whole thing, but I'm not sure why. The characters were awful, she traps him into marriage. Then they both act like idiots throughout the whole book. He ends up being a sap and falls for her and forgives all her awful behavior. Can't recommend it. Historical Romance, Regency Romance This book reminded me continually of Friday's Child, except with sex. I enjoyed the plot and the relationships between the main and side characters, even if I thought the leads were a tad immature. Be warned that this book leans more heavily into traditional gender roles than more recent historical romances. Historical Romance, Regency Romance I have never disliked a book so fast in my entire life.
No wait, there may have been an old bodice ripper that I really couldn't get into, despite the fact I knew what it was, but this one ... oh this one tops the cake so much.
It was promising enough to start with, but then Glee went and FORCED Blanks into marrying her by pretending they were in a compromising position because she wanted to get her way, and he wasn't having it. Because he's an honourable bloke and all, he marries her, and boy, his misgivings for marriage were SO proven true with this little idiot. She basically did everything he didn't want her to do, when he explicitly told her he didn't want her to do it, practically spelling it out. She keeps trying to win his love, but instead of doing what she says at the start of the book - showering him with love - all she does is be an idiot. How he falls in love with her is beyond me.
On top of all that, she's stupid enough to somehow be unable to manage her finances, or keep track of them (even after being explained as intelligent, somehow), and she gets frustrated when he sees her have what he believes are assignations and an affair, and is perplexed that he's mad at her, but then he does something by accident and she hightails it out of town!
I just can't with Glee. She kept on thinking she knew what was best for him, and in reality what happened was she forced him to change.
Just no.
No.
The supporting characters might have been alright but I couldn't get over how the main character grated badly on me, and I skimmed through the rest of the book.
Minus one star. I'm sure the author is a wonderful writer and people love her work, but sadly it isn't for me. Historical Romance, Regency Romance Oh for the love of Pete...NO!
This had so much potential for being a sweet, fun and cute 'girl is in love with her brother's best friend' story. Of course, our hero never ever never wants to get married due to a horrible step-moster/mother, but it is up to our sweet heroine to convince him that marriage and having babies is not such a bad thing after-all. And our perky heroine is up for the challenge!
Except... how she goes about it is beyond ridiculous. I actually made is to about 50% before deleting this from my ipad in disgust.... I just couldn't handle the heroine's stupidity and immaturity a page longer.
From her manipulation to get compromised, to insisting on becoming a woman that the hero is known to love (whores/mistresses, fast women).... it went downhill fast. To become that woman, she persisted on calling his friends by their first names even though they begged her to stop, she mishandles money/debt in ways to seem like a 'fast woman' that were idiotic, dresses ultra revealing in attempts to make her husband jealous, insists on referring to herself as 'one of the bloods' (meaning she is a part of his friends group?) I could go on and on. It seemed like a bad teenage movie in modern times.
Had the heroine acted with more maturity, subtlety and propriety, her attempts at winning over her husband would have been fun and cute to watch. Such a disappointment. Historical Romance, Regency Romance
free download ¾ eBook or Kindle ePUB é Cheryl Bolen
Book 1 was good. Read it twice and decided to move on with the series, but I just don't want to finish this book with such stupid main characters. Historical Romance, Regency Romance JUST SO SO!!
With His Ring was good, but no were close to being as good as The Bride Wore Blue. It was similar in place. The villains character and the plot resemble each other. We meet Gregory Blanks as he is called and Glee Pembroke in bk 1 TBWB. I have read this type of HR story, many times by, many different authors, but With His Ring didn't really grab me, but it was an ok read. Glee has been in love with her brother George's best friend Gregory since she was a child. Glee has now grown up and George's father has died an left him his fortune, with a hitch. marry before your 25th birthday or the money will go to your stepbrother. George has vowed never to marry and never to have children. His mother died on her child bed and his father remarried an hateful mean women who didn't want to have anything to do with Gregory. Gregory was not close to his father becasue of this. Resulting in him not wanting a family of his own. Glee finds out what Gregory must do to inherit his fathers fortune and she convinces Gregory to marry her. She believes she can seduce Gregory to fall in love with her and change his mind about having children. This is were the tug of war between the two begins. This is the same old story I have read by so many different HR authors over the years. It wasn't anything new. Nor impressive enough to give more the 3 stars. It wasn't romantic or sensual! Just so so!.
Historical Romance, Regency Romance Victorian. A let-down.
Glee loved Gregory, her bro's best friend. She trapped
him into a MOC. (I'm not a fan of deception.) In order
to inherit his holdings + wealth (per the will) he needed
to wed prior to his 25th birthday.
They married. Glee provoked Greg w/ her words, actions,
and clothing choices. And Greg responded with anger.
The author repeated this cycle too many times. The leads
pretended to be a 'love match' to fool Greg's half brother
Jonathan, who was 2nd in line to inherit. Neither of the
leads seemed mature enough to make a commitment.
They became hurt & angsty. Too many lectures ensued.
My favorite character was Archie the urchin paid by gentry
men to watch their horses while they ran errands or had
appointments. His Mum had a job, but they experienced a
food & shelter shortage, as she preferred her gin. Historical Romance, Regency Romance I have had this book on my Kindle since 2011 (I know - I know!!) and finally decided to finish this. I’ve read one other book by the author, A Lady By Chance, and I liked it but didn’t love it. That theme continued with this book as well.
This was mostly cute but nothing unusual or particularly memorable - a few days later I’m already forgetting a lot of what happened in the book. This falls quite squarely in the late 90s regency romances with a spunky heroine and a rake who is misunderstood. I have read a lot of romance books published around this time and they mostly blend together. Some authors do a better job in setting stakes and making the character personality distinct from others - here not so much. The gender dynamics especially felt a little more dated than some other authors writing during the period.
I would have been fine with this except that the ending was abrupt and took the smile off my face. For a novel where the function is to basically be a pleasant read and break that was a no-no. So 2 stars in the end. Historical Romance, Regency Romance OMG!!!!! This was ridiculous. I hate giving anything less than 2 stars but🤦🏾♀️🤦🏾♀️
DNF. Some have been because not good writing, or not really my cup of tea. But this, is something else. I liked the first one. I think I decided to read the next because I wanted to read George’s second story. The characters weren’t impressive but the story moved a long. This on the other hand. I want to smack both characters and - no all characters, including his dumb friends. She’s a spoiled nimbcapoop who’s only saving grace is she understands his self centered “good guy” self.
They wanted to pull an 8 year old boy away from his mother. He wished he could help more poor kids, while his wife had just bought a vehicle with her “allowance” and he bought her diamonds which he suspected she lost. She wanted to be a loose woman for him and did things she knew would ruin her name, not for her fun, but to be what he wanted, even though he constantly told her he didn’t want that. She knows how to run a household, but not the price of dresses? It was just too much, and the commentary from each of them. Sickeningly insipid and ugh! I couldn’t find anyone to like, root for, or wonder about. So yeah won’t read the rest of the book or series.
But this is just my opinion, not everyone will or has to agree. And I believe this won’t hurt a lady who obviously is a very successful writer. Maybe I’m being too sensitive. I’m sure Ms. Bolen is a very talented writer and I just read the wrong story. Historical Romance, Regency Romance
Glee Pembroke has turned down countless offers of marriage because she has secretly been in love with her brother's best friend, Gregory Blankenship, all her life. When she learns Gregory will lose his considerable fortune if he's not wed by his twenty-fifth birthday, she persuades him to enter into a sham marriage with her. What he doesn't know is that she plans to win his heart. She will do everything in her power to make him happy – including mimicking the ways of a fast woman since he's noted for alliances with women of that sort.
Why did he ever allow himself to marry the maddening Glee? He'd thought they would have great fun, but at every turn, she exasperates him. Why does she persist in wearing the bodice of her dresses so blasted low? Why do other men persist in flirting with her, his wife? And why in the blazes has his heretofore complacent life been turned upside down by this sham marriage? He finds himself longing for a real marriage, but for reasons he cannot divulge, that can never happen. With His Ring (The Brides of Bath, #2)