Reviewer: Connie Payne
Title: Almost a Bride
Author: Cheryl St.John
Publisher: Harlequin Historical Anthology
ISBN: 0-3732-9399-2
Release Date: May 2006
Genre/Sub-genre: Historical Romamce
Year/Setting: 1892-Cooper Creek, CO
Overall rating: 5.0
Sexual content rating: None
Language (Profanity) content rating: None
Cheryl's Website:
www.tlt.com/authors/cstjohn.htm
Charmaine Renlow has helped plan many weddings, made several bridal veils and watched as couples in love made new lives for themselves. All of which she despairs of ever experiencing as she doesn’t think of herself as attractive or special enough to elicit romantic or loving feelings from a man.
Perhaps her beau of four years just needs a shove in the right direction? Jack Easton would be the perfect man to make Wayne Brookover take notice, but soon she wonders if she even wants him to take notice, especially since she’s taken notice of Jack.
Single father, Jack Easton, finds himself on the committee to make a float for the school for the Founder’s Day parade, along with Charmaine, who’s filling in for her cousin, and other parents. Finding himself attracted to Charmaine, he briefly considers the possibility of getting to know her better, but rejects that idea when he sees that they are no match being from two different worlds.
It’s not long before he’s on to her plan, though by that time she had rejected it, knowing how unfair it was to all parties concerned. They exchange words, and though they may hurt, they’re the catalyst that’s needed for some soul-searching.
Both Charmaine and Jack, each in their own way, feel as if they don’t measure up somehow to what they should be in order for someone to love them. But sometimes it takes someone we’d least expect to see what we can’t, no matter how hard we try.
It was fun to revisit some of the friends we’ve met in Copper Creek like Annie and Luke (from Sweet Annie) and Noah and Kate (from His Secondhand Wife), if only briefly.
My only complaint is Almost a Bride is a part of an anthology (though it’s with good company--Carolyn Davidson and Jenna Kernan's stories) and not a single title. It was so easy to identify with and like Charmaine and Jack that I’d have liked to have been able to get to know them a bit more in-depth.
Ms. St.John certainly knows how to create characters many of us can identify with in one way or another; she makes them "real". And in doing so the reader becomes emotionally invested in their lives and in the story.
She never disappoints and always endears the reader to both her and her moving stories. I don’t know if she knows this, but it’s no wonder she’s a favorite among so many readers!
Connie
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