Review: Trouble at the Wedding by Laura Lee Guhrke

Posted January 4, 2012 by Tracy in Reviews | 7 Comments

Publisher: Avon, Harper Collins
What happens when a woman is determined to marry the wrong man? When she just won’t listen to reason and rushes forward with wedding plans? When she just doesn’t care that she’s marrying a fortune hunting scoundrel who doesn’t love her? What’s her exasperated family supposed to do about it? Hire a different scoundrel to talk her out of it, of course.
American heiress Annabel Wheaton knows what she wants and love isn’t it. Born in a Mississippi backwater, with a twang as wide as the Delta, she wants respect to go with the millions her daddy found in a Klondike gold mine. But respect isn’t easy to come by in the closed Knickerbocker society of New York, and when the fortune-hunting Earl of Rumsford shows up, it seems like he’s just the ticket to make all Annabel’s dreams come true. When he proposes marriage, she happily agrees. That’s when the trouble starts.
Christian Du Quesne has always been trouble—a rake, a gambler, and when he was younger, a fortune hunter. He married once for the sake of the decaying family coffers, but he won’t do it again. When his older brother, the Duke of Scarborough, dies without issue, Christian become the duke and inherits a whole new pile of family debt with no way to pay it. When Annabel’s family hires him to show Annabel just what she’d be getting by marrying into Britain’s aristocratic class, he knows he’s the perfect person to talk her out of matrimony. Problem is, he only has four days to do it. Can he cause enough trouble in those four days to get her to call off the wedding?
Annabel Wheaton grew up in a tin roofed shack in Mississippi with no clue that she would eventually be richer than Midas one day. Now that she’s 25 she knows that money isn’t going to buy her happiness – or does she? She’s been shunned and ignored by the wealthy society of New York so she believes that marrying into the British Aristocracy is the answer. She plans on marrying the Earl of Rumsford but her uncle Arthur is extremely against the match. Knowing the Duke of Scarborough, Christian DuQuesne (Du-cane) is in need of money Arthur offers him half a million dollars if Christian can put an end to the wedding – even if it means just postponing it for a few months.
Christian takes the job and on a ship bound for England from New York (which is where the wedding will take place) he goes about trying to convince Annabel that not only is Rumsford bad for her but that she will hate everything about England and how it will change her. This does bring doubts to her mind – and when Christian kisses her it brings even more. But Annabel is nothing but stubborn and tries to go ahead with the wedding anyway, despite her ever chilling feet. Notice I said “tries”. Yep, the wedding is stopped in an oh, so dramatic way that I just loved.
So the wedding is stopped but what about Annabel’s reputation? Being the clever girl that she is she quickly devises a plan that will save her reputation and make Christian pay, just a little for his part in the debacle that was her first wedding attempt. But Annabel feels more than anger at Christian. She feels lust and a whole lot more and soon finds herself falling in love with him. But he has sworn that he would never marry again since his first marriage was such a disaster. When things between Annabel and Christian heat up to the point where they find themselves having to marry a ton of different feelings come out in both of them but not all of them are good. How will they make it work?
This is the third book in the Abandoned at the Altar series and it was a good one. I really liked so very much about the book. Annabel is at the top of this list. While my heart ached for all that she had been through I love her strength. She had gone through some utter crap and though she wanted to be accepted she really did it for her sister. She never wanted her sister or her children when they came along to ever have to go through what she did. While I thought some of her decisions weren’t always the best I really thought that she was the strongest character in the book.
Christian was second on my list. I didn’t think that we got too deeply into Christian’s brain but we saw enough of his personality and his past to make a fair judgment of his character. He’s thought a rakehell but since it was before he came the Duke we never got to witness any of that – and it was ok. I thought it was enough to be told of his past mistakes to see them for the (eventual) learning experiences that they turned out to be.
The story and romance itself was both fun and heartbreaking with times of humor and severity. I thought that Ms. Guhrke did a great job of showing us the lighter side of each character as well as the serious parts of their lives that weren’t to be taken lightly. It was very well done. Overall it was a really good book that I very much enjoyed reading.
Rating: 4.25 out of 5


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7 responses to “Review: Trouble at the Wedding by Laura Lee Guhrke

  1. Nice review Tracy! I'm so glad you enjoyed it so much. I really liked Christian in this one… and I really liked that Annabel found a way to get herself out of trouble – that was really quick thinking of her. However, I don't know, something was missing for me… and in the end, I didn't like this one as much as Scandal of the Year.

  2. Nath – Annabell certainly was a quick thinker, that's for sure. I think with the previous book we got to see so much built up tension that it ended up having a different feel for me. Still really great though.

    Orannia – Thank you. 🙂

    Ames – I know, I had to make myself read book 2 and then was so glad I did!

    SidneyKay – Hope you like it!

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