Lynn Spencer's Reviews > Tempting the Bride

4.5 stars This one didn't wring me out emotionally in the same way as Ravishing the Heiress, but it was a thoroughly entertaining read and I adored the characters. Helena Fitzhugh starts off the book seeming very book-smart (she does run a publishing company), but perhaps a bit naive. When the man she fell for back in the day is pressured by his mother to marry elsewhere, she doesn't recognize his lack of spine for what it is. Instead she excuses it and when he expresses an interest in an affair, she lets herself get swept away.

David Hillsborough, now Viscount Hastings, has long been a treasured family friend to most of the Fitzhughs and a neverending torment to Helena. When David recognizes the scandal Helena is about to unleash upon herself, he hatches a rather clever plan to rescue the situation. There's only one hitch: Helena must marry him. The less-than-thrilled Helena marries David, promptly gets into an accident, and then the real story begins.

This one is an amnesia plot. When Helena awakens, she has no memory of anything beyond her childhood. Her memory ends shortly before David came into the Fitzhughs' lives, and she has to take it on faith that this man is who he says he is. The author does a great job of showing Helena's vulnerability, and we also see David carefully trying not to take advantage of it. There are times when he could have planted false memories in her head, but he chooses not to do so.

We learn early on that David fell in love with Helena years ago, and since their history has been wiped away in her mind, this book does start off with something of a new beginning for both of them. The growth of feeling between them really is quite well done, and I loved some of the conversations these two had.

Very rarely do I end up loving all the books in a series, but this trilogy is one of the best I've read. Highly recommend it.