Sophie Blake’s grandfather willed his fortune to the first of his granddaughters to marry a duke.  Since her cousin, Deirdre, will seal the deal any day now, the quiet, bookish Sophie can sit back and enjoy her time with the only man she truly adores: Graham. No matter that the part charmer, part scoundrel has absolutely no designs on her! Sophie is content to engage Graham in lively conversation, beat him at cards. . .and probe at the darkness hiding behind his rakish smile.

Then Graham unexpectedly gains a title, an estate in near ruins and a mountain of debt.  If there is any chance of survival he must find a rich wife—quickly. As his hunt for a bride begins, Sophie realizes that she isn’t even in the running. Suddenly no longer content to be a wallflower, Sophie gets a stunning make-over and becomes the belle of the ball. Lots of heads are turning…including Graham’s. But this beauty has secrets of her own. Will she be his salvation or seal his fate?

This is the third and final installment in The Heiress Bride series.

Sophie Blake is the cousin who never considered that she would have a chance at the Pinkering fortune. Accepting herself for who she knows she is, Sophie doesn’t even consider trying to find a duke to marry. Actually, she doesn’t consider finding anyone to marry at all. All she wants to do is enjoy London, enjoy her books, and enjoy her newest friend. The awkwardness that Sophie usually feels around men is absent when she is with Graham. Lord Graham Cavendish was brutally honest when he told Sophie that he could never be attracted to someone as plain as her. While that would sound downright mean to some people actually helped Sophie overcome her natural shyness and enjoy the company of a man for the first time in her life. It’s not Graham’s fault that her feeling develop into more. She decides to keep quiet, promising herself that she will do nothing to risk losing her friendship with Graham.

That all changes when Graham’s father and his heirs all die while in Africa. Suddenly Graham is the Duke of Endecourt and he has to find a rich woman to marry, the sooner the better. According to her grandfather’s will, Sophie can’t tell Graham that she stands to inherit a fortune. What she can do is shed her plain persona and become a woman that Graham will sit up and take notice of.

As for Graham, he’s suddenly seeing Sophie in a new light. Of course it happens after he couldn’t possibly do anything about it. Unlike his father and brothers before him, Graham is determined that he is going to put Endecourt and its’ people above his own wants. That means pursuing Sophie is out of the question.

I liked this book the most out of the three. There’s a twist that I didn’t see coming toward the end, but I can’t spoil it. I actually thought I read it wrong and had to go back to re-read it. It was almost thrown in as an afterthought which was either awful or brilliant. There was one thing that I didn’t like about this book. At the end, Tessa (the evil stepmother/aunt) turned a new leaf. It was laughable. This woman was the most viperous, vicious, vindictive character you can imagine. And at the end she apologized to Sophie for her atrocious behavior? That seems bad enough by itself, but it’s the why of it that makes it worse. She finally found a man that won’t put up with her crap. After how this character was written, I wanted her to get thrown out on her bum by all three of them women. If not that, at least shunned by society. Something to make up for how awful she was in all three books. Alas, it didn’t happen and the blood thirsty part of me was left wanting.

Overall, readers of this series should enjoy this third and final installment.

4 out of 5.

The Heiress Brides

The dangerously beautiful Deirdre Cantor is determined to inherit her grandfather’s vast fortune. All she needs is to marry a duke…and be the first granddaughter to walk down the aisle. After all, she has always dreamed of becoming a member of the haute ton. So when the proper Calder Marbrook, the Marquis of Brookhaven and future Duke of Brookmoor, is abandoned at the altar, Deirdre makes it her business to become his wife—in spite of the whispers about his past.

Soon Deirdre’s visions of a lavish existence with the handsome Calder are shattered when she learns his shocking secret. Feeling betrayed, Deirdre seeks revenge by playing a perilous and seductive game of cat and mouse with her husband that threatens to drive them both to the heights of passion. She will not surrender to him, no matter how great her desire. But at what cost?  Calder is determined to keep his secret under lock and key—and to make his stunning wife his in every way that matters. Even if it means winning her heart all over again…

For me, this was a vast improvement over Desperately Seeking a Duke. This was more believeable, for one thing. It was also more like what I’ve come to expect when I pick a book up by Celeste Bradley.

I’m always somewhat fascinated when an author takes a character that has previously been so un-likeable and actually makes said character likeable. That’s how Deirdre was for me. I didn’t like her in Desperately Seeking a Duke. She seemed like an opportunistic, social climbing airhead. Though you get an inkling at the end of the book that there is more to Deirdre than meets the eye, it’s still was not quite enough to have me believing that she would be a good heroine.

When Sophie breaks her engagement with Calder Marbrook, the Marquis of Brookhaven, Deirdre sees it as her opportunity to marry the man that she loves. Yes, loves. Though the fact that he is next in line to the dukedom is a nice bonus, Deirdre has loved Calder from afar for years. When he proposed to Sophie, Deirdre was heartbroken and barely able to standby and keep her silence. I think it was at that point that my opinion about Deirdre completely changed. The fact that she didn’t try to interfere in any way between Sophie and Calder spoke volumes about her character.

Deirdre learns rather early on that Calder has been keeping a secret. A big one. It isn’t until after their wedding that she learns that Calder has a daughter. Deirdre is appalled that Calder would actually expect her to be a mother to a child that she had no idea existed. When she realizes that she’s treating eight year old Meggie exactly as Tessa (the evil stepmother) treated her as a child, Deirdre decides that she can only try to make the best of an impossible situation.

Though Deirdre endeared herself time and time again with how she dealt with Meggie, her childishness still came through here and there. Though never really trying to make Calder jealous, she continued to have her former suitors visit. It’s one of her former suitors that becomes obsessed with Deirdre and convinced that she really wants to be free of the Marquis of Brookhaven. Helping matters along is one of the solicitors that is managing Deirdre’s grandfather’s fortune. You’ll remember that this is one of the solicitor’s that kidnapped Rafe in Desperately Seeking a Duke.

The suspense element in this book was much more believeable. An obsessive lovestruck suitor. A jealous husband. Given Calder’s past with his wife running away with another man, he obviously jumps to the wrong conclusion about Deirdre and the poet (for the life of me, I can’t remember his name). What could have become tedious, didn’t because it didn’t take Calder long to realize that he was wrong. Of course then it’s almost too late when he comes to that realization.

The ending was fitting. I am really looking forward to reading the third and final installment in this trilogy. I think historical lovers should really enjoy this series.

4 out of 5.

The Heiress Brides