Review: Wedding of the Season by Laura Lee Guhrke.

Posted December 27, 2010 by Rowena in Reviews | 5 Comments

Rowena’s review of Wedding of the Season (Abandoned at the Altar, Book 1) by Laura Lee Guhrke.

Hero: Will Mallory, Duke of Sunderland
Heroine: Lady Beatrix Danbury

Being jilted. It’s awful for a girl.

Especially if your fiancé was also your childhood sweetheart , your prince charming, and the handsome, rakish duke you’d built all your dreams around. Even more awful if he jilted you two weeks before your wedding and took off for Egypt. It would take a girl a long time to get over that sort of humiliation.

But what if six years later, on the eve of your next wedding, he returns and he decides he wants you back? Too bad, you say? But what if he’s as hot, handsome, and rakishly charming as ever? What if his return stirs up all the old passions you thought you’d conquered? What if you find yourself longing for the past and questioning the future? What if you have to spend a whole month at the same house party with him and your new fiancé?

Well, for Lady Beatrix Danbury, that sort of situation is more than awful. It’s impossible. It’s intolerable. It’s a nightmare. But it might also turn out to be her dream come true.

I’ve never in my life read a book by Laura Lee Guhrke but in the space of a couple of days, I read two. This book was the first of the two. I’m pretty impressed with what I’ve read and I will definitely be reading more from her in the future as well.

Six years ago, Lady Beatrix was jilted at the altar when her fiance’ (and best friend) Will Mallory, chose to go to Egypt to dig up King Tut instead of stay in England and build a life with her. It took her five long years to be okay to move on from him and when she finally does and is going to marry a good man, of course he pops back into her life.

Will’s back in England because he needs a sponsor to fund his work. He’s so close to finding King Tut but he’s blown through his inheritance and needs money to keep the work going. He’s back in England to ask Beatrix’s cousin and his dear friend, Paul Danbury, for a loan…and okay, maybe Beatrix’s wedding to Aidan Carr, Duke of Trathen has something to do with his interest in coming back. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t but one thing is for sure, Will is heartbroken about what happened six years ago just as much as Trix is.

This story is one of those first loves stories. Will and Beatrix grew up together, they played together with Beatrix’s cousins Paul and Julia, they fell in love together. They loved each other passionately as only first loves can love and they got engaged. They were going to live the rest of their lives together, build a family together but real life and dreams got in the way.

Beatrix couldn’t believe that he didn’t want to stay in England and start their life together and Will couldn’t believe that Trix wasn’t going to come along to Egypt to follow his dream. Watching these two battle wits, fight their attraction (that was still burning hot) and not fall in love with each other made for some entertaining reading.

There were times when I didn’t understand where Beatrix was coming from and there were times that I wanted to kick Will in the nuts for being an idiot but for the most part, I enjoyed both characters and wanted them to get their happy ending. To finally get things right.

My favorite part about reading this story was how real the characters felt to me. Guhrke did a great job of making me connect with both Beatrix and Will. I felt both of their pain and I enjoyed getting to know the both of them. Even more, I loved how slick she was with the jump start to the next story. The bits and pieces of that story had me curious and eager for more.

Overall, this story was a good one. I enjoyed getting to know the characters, I enjoyed reading through the story to get to the end and though I felt the ending was a bit rushed, it didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the story and I very much looked forward to reading the next story.

Grade: 4 out of 5

This book is available from Avon. You can buy it here or here in e-format.