The Bridal Season

While this is not her absolute best book, Ms Brockway never fails to delight. Her leading characters are engaging and full of life, her plots absorbing and her narrative beyond charming.

Stepping politely over the failures which some Regencies set purely in London court, Connie Brockway charms entirely within the confines of a little traveled village & and it's occupants. Being only my second novel from this author, I didn't know to look forwards to a plot with a `confidence trickster' masquerading as a Duke's daughter - instead I dreaded it. Until about 10 pages in when I realized it was absolutely perfect! The brash Letty impersonates Lady Agatha White & fills her shoes in arranging a wedding for a country miss. She becomes involved unwillingly drawn into the lives and mini melodramas of the people around her, and falls hard for the local magistrate - Elliot. And that is enough of a plot synopsis for you lot! (greedy eyes) Charming where it could have been ridiculous, bold when it could have been trite, the simple ease and humor with which the author delights and entertains the reader is impossible to describe. In the unlikely Letty, we find no shrinking heroine, but a `woman of the world' who is quite aware of her own appeal and not a bit above using it. Every chapter begins with a maxim, and I came to thoroughly enjoy them - take for example, `The villain gets to cheat, lie, steal, and kick the dog, because in the end you shoot him'. All slightly stage centered advice passed on from her mother and the applicable line before each short chapter. Even the hero is thoroughly believable and wonderfully suave. Setting the time frame a little later than Regency England, into the last decade of Queen Victoria's reign, the dress provides a refreshing change from all that dampened muslin and so on! Sweeping hats are delightfully apparent, and our heroine sashays well.. A wonderful companion novel to Bridal Favours by Connie Brockway (...)

I just love Connie Brockway. Her characters are vibrant, real people that you would like to know. "A Bridal Season" was laugh-out-loud funny. Lily Potts is charming, witty, and flawed. Her attempts at aristocratic social graces are laughable, she's loud, ambitious, an opportunist, and something of a vamp, but she is so full of honest good will and humor you love her for it. Elliot March is sexy. If he wasn't make-believe that is. He is a man of integrity and honesty, a man who truly lives by what he feels is right and wrong, which I admire. But under his reserve lies a wonderfully open and humorous spirt, and he loosens up when he meets the woman of his dreams to give as good as he gets. My favorite thing about Brockway's heroes is how hard they fall for the women they love. And Elliot is no exception. I just love the scene at the end where Elliot claims his bride-- throwing all his reserve and propriety to the wind. My only regret is that Ms. Brockway did not show us as much as I would have liked of Lily and Elliot's love scene. Elliot is a very sensual man, but I felt that scene was only half completed. This aspect keeps "A Bridal Season" from being one of my favorite Brockway books. But truly, a delightful & hilarious story. Connie Brockway is one of a handful of writers I buy on name only.

THE BRIDAL SEASON immediately shot to the top of my "Best Reads of 2001" list. It's fresh, funny, and thoroughly delightful from the first page to the last. You can't help but root for Letty and fall in love with Elliot. It's not Letty's strengths, but her flaws that make her such a compelling character. I hate reading about perfect women because I've never been one! The croquet game is truly a classic scene. All of the secondary characters are perfection, even Fagin/Lambikins. I liked this book so much that I ordered it in hardcover (...) after I'd already read it in paperback. Bravo, Ms. Brockway!

THE BRIDAL SEASON is just what the doctor ordered for post-turkey Blahs. Letty Potts and Elliot March are the odd-couple of the romance world and do sparks ever fly when they're together. She's pretending to be a high-class lady but she knows it can only be for a very short time and she also knows that he's the last person on earth that she should fall in love with. He's a high-class gentleman and ex-soldier who knows that there's something off about the beautiful "Lady Agatha" but the more he gets to know her the less he can concentrate on, well, ANYTHING! Laugh out loud funny but shivery romantic, too, the perfect holiday read.

This book is more reminiscent of her earlier books. The humor is back, the characters don't overact, the heroine is competent, the hero is yummy, the ending could have several diffent possibilities so it keeps you guessing and it's a touching story. This is an author you buy on name alone and will not be dissapointed with.