The Bride Takes a Groom: The Penhallow Dynasty, Book 3

In Berne’s marvelous third Penhallow Dynasty Regency (after The Laird Takes a Bride), reunited friends find that a hasty marriage leads to significant challenges. Capt. Hugo Penhallow hopes to marry well to restore his family’s fortunes. He sets his sights on Katherine Brooke, a childhood friend. Katherine is not the amiable girl he remembers; she has succumbed to her parents’ pressure to display the trappings of their wealth with her ostentatious dress, and is so eager to get out from under their stifling control that she breaks convention and proposes to Hugo. As Hugo and Katherine adjust to married life, she surprises him with glimpses into her caring nature and confuses him by first displaying a sudden eagerness for intimacy and then stifling it because she thinks he regrets their marriage. But Hugo discovers that she desires him and Katherine learns that she is worthy of his affection in a slow development that’s beautifully written. Regency fans will love this forthright, intellectual heroine and affable, resourceful hero. Agent: Cheryl Pientka, Jill Grinberg Literary. (Apr.)