Cherie's Reviews > Barely a Bride

I missed an entire day of reading due to illness and I was wishing the whole day I had this book on audio. I fell in love with Griffin immediately. He is a happy, non-brooding character who is one of the most honorable gentlemen I've ever read about. 2/3s of the story are about his meeting Alyssa and their wedding and three days of honeymoon. Then he leaves to join his cavalry regiment in the peninsula. Hagan Lee needed few pages to set the stage for a man who has fallen in love with his wife and a wife who has fallen in love with her husband, she is that good at descriptive writing. Both live for the letters they receive from each other with Griff's close comrades: his valet, who has accompanied him, and a young Lieutenant Hughes also enjoying her descriptions of her work and plans on the Abernathy estate. The battle where Griff is wounded is specific enough to feel like one is there seeing it but not so graphic as to be violent. I appreciated this because I didn't have to just accept that it made sense Griff came home with nightmares I understood, at a low level, why he had nightmares. Once Griff is home there are only about 50 pages left but, again, Hagan Lee is deft with her pen and completes the story without leaving me feel like its been forced closed.

The teaser synopsis is incorrect. They aren't expecting love but their marriage is not loveless, they both feel a strong attraction to each other from the beginning. Griffin, indeed, is scarred to his soul but feels he's not deserving of Alyssa. He doesn't set out to woo his bride, he can barely walk, he actually leaves to free her. She now pursues him. Bradley Cooper consistently came up in my mind as the face of Griffin.

I want the rest of this series. Badly. My bookstore doesn't have them available even to order and they are not in e-book format either. I found this one at a second hand bookstore. Time to go searching for more of this author.