CHARACTERS Ä TEXASBEERGUIDE.COM ´ Victoria Purman
Isabella Martenson never expected to be a runaway bride. She never expected to be a bride, period. She simply has the wrong DNA to do the whole happily married thing. Until one night in Vegas with a handsome winemaker changes everything...
A year later, Harry Harrison’s bride is still a mystery. Who was she? Where was she? And why did she run? When Harry flies to Australia for his best friend's wedding, he runs straight into the woman he’s never been able to forget.
All she asks is for their marriage to be kept a secret. All he asks is for a divorce. But after a week together, Harry and Isabella are forced to face what they really want.
Belles Secret (Outback Brides Book 2)
Isabella lives in Australia and works with friend Maggie, organising and conductOMG marriages.
When Isabella ( Belle) officiates the wedding for the happy and very loved up couple Amanda and Simon it’s like any normal wedding for her, well apart from the theme of the wedding is Sci-Fi including costumes!! one of the wedding guests approaches her and its Harry Henderson her estranged Husband who she married in Las Vegas a year ago!!
Harry has been searching for Belle for a year, only by coincidence he accepted his friends wedding invitation and comes upon Belle his runaway bride.
Belle was in Los Vegas for 3 days of training when she met Harry at the hotel bar, there was an instant attraction but was it love or lust?
When they meet again the attraction is still strong. But have they got a future together?
A very enjoyable read. I haven’t read the first book In the series but will definitely look for it now.
Thank you to Netgalley for my copy in exchange for a review. Fiction, Contemporary, Romance Isabella Martenson couldn’t believe how happy she’d been in the twelve months since moving from Melbourne to help her best friend Maggie in her new venture. Maggie’s property of Wirra Station was now a wedding venue and Isabella was the marriage celebrant. That day she was officiating over her 100th wedding in that year.
But when she saw an American guest - the groom Simon’s best friend – her shock was immense. She hadn’t thought she would ever see Harry Harrison, Napa Valley winemaker, ever again. Isabella’s past was about to catch up with her in an explosive and not pleasant way. What was she to do? No one knew about her past – the biggest mistake she’d ever made – not even Maggie…
Belle’s Secret is the 2nd in the rural Outback Brides series by Aussie author Victoria Purman and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’ve read #1 and #3 and this one was like catching up with old friends once again. A quick, easy-to-read rural romance which I have no hesitation in recommending.
Fiction, Contemporary, Romance It’s been a while since I’ve dipped into one of Tule’s multi-author series’, something they do well, and after reading the blurb for this one, decided a visit to the Aussie outback was in order.
Call me old-fashioned, but when you marry someone you kinda expect them to be there the next day. And the day after that and, you know, until death or annoying personal habits do us part.”
The premise of Belle’s Secret sounded great and the opportunity for romance in a beautiful setting is there for the taking as Harry unexpectedly finds his missing wife, Isabella when he attends his friend’s nuptials. In practice though, what I found was a story that for that didn’t really deliver much, particularly in the first 60% when very little happened.
For better or for worse.”
In terms of the romance, it definitely kicks up a gear once we hit that 60% mark and you can understand why this couple were impulsive when it came to tying the knot as their steamy moments are of the same nature. On the whole though this was what I’d term unremarkable and whilst I didn’t dislike Belle and Harry, I’d have preferred a story with more showing rather than telling.
Copy received courtesy of Tule Publishing via NetGalley for an honest and unbiased opinion.
Fiction, Contemporary, Romance Isabella lives in Australia and works with friend Maggie, organising and conductOMG marriages.
When Isabella ( Belle) officiates the wedding for the happy and very loved up couple Amanda and Simon it’s like any normal wedding for her, well apart from the theme of the wedding is Sci-Fi including costumes!! one of the wedding guests approaches her and its Harry Henderson her estranged Husband who she married in Las Vegas a year ago!!
Harry has been searching for Belle for a year, only by coincidence he accepted his friends wedding invitation and comes upon Belle his runaway bride.
Belle was in Los Vegas for 3 days of training when she met Harry at the hotel bar, there was an instant attraction but was it love or lust?
When they meet again the attraction is still strong. But have they got a future together?
A very enjoyable read. I haven’t read the first book In the series but will definitely look for it now.
Thank you to Netgalley for my copy in exchange for a review.
Fiction, Contemporary, Romance I was reading this off and on for a month or more--it's fine. I like the premise, but the way the relationship developed was oddly paced. Fiction, Contemporary, Romance
This is a wonderful, well written book, I absolutely loved it. This is the first time I have read Victoria Purman’s work and I will definitely read more. This author makes the characters and setting come to life. The descriptions are vivid enough that you actually feel you have visited Australia and experienced one of Belle’s weddings! Fiction, Contemporary, Romance 2.5 - We all make mistakes… You were mine. Stars!
Belle’s Secret is the first book I have read by Victoria Purman, and the second book in the Outback Brides series.
She believed in marriage and happy ever afters. For other people… Not for herself.
Bearing in mind the premise for this one is a celebrant getting jiggy with a guy on a long weekend trip to Las Vegas, marrying and spending one night of sexual bliss with him, then upping and leaving him without a by your leave the morning after, I was expecting a little more emotion to the reconnection between Isabella and Harry.
I need to get you out of my system… And then it will be over.
The man has spent almost twelve months searching for her, and having pretty much given up, stumbles across her in the back-of-beyond Australian outback at his best friend’s wedding. The first half of the book, although easy to read trundles along with very little happening between the pair of them, I was expecting recriminations, emotional outbursts and a couple working through the issues of Belle’s abandonment, Harry’s anger over their separation and the working towards some sort of future together, but it was all just a bit superficial and lacking in much of anything.
There wasn’t a wine in the world that tasted as good as her lips.
Although easy enough to read, and with a couple likeable enough in characteristics, I found myself finishing this book massively underwhelmed with the story-line overall, the sexy times when they occurred were decent, and I saw enough of the authors writing to know I’d absolutely read more from her, I just didn’t really believe that this was a couple who loved each other and were reconnecting after almost a year apart. Easy-going enough but wholly forgettable I’m afraid.
ARC generously provided via Netgalley, in exchange for the above honest review.
Fiction, Contemporary, Romance Isabella Martenson had been keeping a secret for the last year. Not even her best friend knew it. Isabella married a man when she was in Las Vegas for a convention and then panicked and ran. She went back to Australia and moved hoping Harry would never find her. Things are going good for Isabella now. She is running her own business, Wedding Belles, and officiating weddings at her best friend Maggie’s wedding venue. But when one of her wedding guests turns out to be her husband, Isabella doesn’t know how to react.
Harry Harrison, a well-known wine maker from San Francisco, is a guest at his friend’s weddings when he spots Belle, the woman who disappeared after they were married. Since then he has been searching for her. He just wants a divorce so he can move on with his life. But when circumstances put the two of them together, they both might decide they want a second chance.
This was a sweet story. The situation was a bit unbelievable, but it made for a fun read. I cheered on Isabella and Harry the entire time. I wanted them to stay together. The author kept the story interesting and enjoyable.
Fiction, Contemporary, Romance Belle’s Secret by Victoria Purman is a very different second chance romance and a great addition to the series. The heroine is a wedding celebrant who was secretly married whilst on a conference in Las Vegas but she told her husband her name is Belle rather than Isabella and she left before he woke up after their wedding night, returning home to Australia without leaving him a note or message. He searched for her but couldn’t discover where she’d gone. Eleven months later her husband, Harry, is attending a wedding where she’s the celebrant. . . . This is a heartwarming story filled with angst, turmoil, pain, hope and dreams. Many of the characters from the first story are involved in this story but I still think it would work well as a standalone. I certainly thoroughly enjoyed escaping back to this outback community and have no hesitation in highly recommending this book.
Tule authors have done it again! They’ve created a community - Wirralong - populated it with great characters and have written entertaining romances based there, each by a different author and involving different main characters but sharing many of the secondary ones and events. Each story can be read as a standalone but this is a superb series and I highly recommend reading them all, I’ve loved escaping into this Australian Outback town, getting to know the characters, places and events whilst reading all four books. I hope there will be more books based in this small town in future.
I requested and was given a copy of this book, via NetGalley. This is my honest review of the book after choosing to read it. Fiction, Contemporary, Romance I am loving this series, this is the second one and we have already met Isabella, Isabella is the marriage celebrant and is now working and living at Wirra Station, but she has a secret that she has kept for one year and now after marrying a couple that secret maybe about to come to life in the form of Harry Harrison gorgeous American a guest at the wedding, love at first sight, Vegas, a runaway bride and true love, a sensual pull that cannot be denied, this is a must read.
Isabella Martenson is an only child her mother flitted from one relationship to another, and eventually Isabella went out on her own in Melbourne met Maggie her best friend and is now doing wedding ceremonies on Wirra Station, but after a trip to Vegas one year before she has become the runaway bride meeting Harry in a bar was love at first sight but Bella is scared and runs before morning leaving Harry in the lurch. Her life is turned upside down but she gets on with it until Harry turns up at a wedding.
Harry Harrison winemaker from California meets the beautiful Bella in a bar in Vegas and he ends up marrying her in an Elvis wedding he has never felt so close and attracted to a woman before not only do they get on so well the sensual pull is amazing and the sex the best of his life, but morning she is gone with no clues to who she is, until he runs into her at a wedding, fate maybe and he wants a divorce, or does he.
MS Purman has ticked all of the boxes for this story wow it is so good, fabulous characters, so much emotion, a sensual pull that is off the charts as these two pulled back together as they should be, I mean who can fight love at first sight like this. I loved it. I am loving this town Wiralong and the people in it, I highly recommend this story and am really looking forward to the next one in the series woohoo.
Fiction, Contemporary, Romance