Grace Cabot's mother is mad, slowly losing her memory and
her knowledge of the family around her. Grace's
stepfather
has just died and her stepbrother is about to get married
and kick Grace, along with her three sisters and her
insane mother,
out of the family mansion. Grace is desperate to force a
marriage before the ton discovers she has no dowry to
speak
of and her mother is going mad.
Grace intends to entrap Amherst, a young buck, into
matrimony. She engineers the discovery of an illicit
embrace with Amherst, only to discover when the lights
come
on that it is his dour older brother Jeffrey, the Earl of
Merryton, whom she has ensnared. Forced to wed Merryton
in
scandal, she finds him to be inflexible and
incommunicative.
Jeffrey requires a rigid schedule and symmetry in his life
to control his anxiety and his repetitive sexual
thoughts. He counts to eight constantly in an attempt to
rein in his lascivious thoughts of woman-on-woman sex and
his desires for light BDSM. Grace turns Jeffrey's world
and his carefully ordered universe topsy-turvy, creating
deeper stress for him that makes him crave the symmetry
and
repetitiveness of the number eight even more.
I can think of a number of books in the last several years
that have presented men with psychiatric disorders that
have been sympathetic heroes that I have fallen in love
with over the course of the story. Jeffrey does not fall
in this category. His OCD behaviors made me vaguely
uncomfortable throughout the whole book. Grace tries some
light kink in the bedroom to satisfy his lustful
fantasies,
and the scene felt awkward to me.
I have been a faithful reader of Julia London for many
years, and will definitely read her next book when it
releases, but THE DEVIL TAKES A BRIDE did not work for me.
Once the toast of society, Grace Cabot and her sisters
now
await the shame of losing high status and fine luxuries
upon
the death of the Earl of Beckington. The dire
circumstances
are inevitable unless, of course, Grace's wicked plot to
seduce a wealthy viscount into marriage goes off without
a
single hitch. But once a stolen embrace with the wrong
man
leads her to be discovered in the arms of Jeffrey, the
Earl
of Merryton, her plan takes a most unexpected—and
scorching—twist.
-and altered by passion.
Governed by routine and ruled by duty, Jeffrey had no
desire
for a wife before he succumbed to Grace's temptation.
Though
his golden-haired, in-name-only bride is the definition
of
disorder, he can't resist wanting her in every way. But
once
her secrets meet his, society might consider their lives
to
be ruined beyond repair-while Jeffrey might just see it
as a
new beginning.
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