Tag: Abandoned at the Altar

Throwback Thursday Review: Scandal of the Year by Laura Lee Guhrke

Posted January 28, 2021 by Rowena in Reviews | 6 Comments

Throwback Thursday Review: Scandal of the Year by Laura Lee GuhrkeReviewer: Rowena
Scandal of the Year by Laura Lee Guhrke
Series: Abandoned at the Altar #2
Also in this series: Trouble at the Wedding (Abandoned at the Altar, #3)
Publisher: Avon
Publication Date: January 25, 2011
Format: Paperback
Source: Publisher
Point-of-View: Third Person
Cliffhanger: View Spoiler »
Genres: Historical Romance
Pages: 372
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
four-half-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

ONE TRYST WAS ALL SHE WANTED ...

From their very first meeting, Julia knew that Aidan Carr, the oh-so-proper Duke of Trathen, had a bit of the devil in him, a devil who secretly yearned for what he could not have, a devil who harbored a desire for her. So when she needed to be caught in a compromising situation, Aidan was the answer to her prayers.

ONE TRYST JUST WASN'T ENOUGH ...

Aidan is supposed to be looking for a bride, yet his scandalous liaison with Julia is all he can think about. Hot, erotic memories of kissing her skin, falling into her bed, pulling her naked body on top of his own continue to torment and tempt him. What is it about this brazen seductress that he finds so hard to resist? And how can he stop himself from falling into her bed a second time?

This review was originally posted on January 25, 2011.

This is the second book in the Abandoned at the Altar series and I ate this book up. As much as I enjoyed the first book, Wedding of the Season, I enjoyed this book a little more. I knew that something was going on between Julia and Aidan in WotS and I knew that it was going to be a good story and boy was I not disappointed.

Julia wants a divorce and she’s desperate enough to go to any lengths to secure a divorce and when Aidan gets caught in the middle of it all, she’s sorry for it but she doesn’t regret it. Aidan, on the other hand, is furious but because he’s a gentleman, he doesn’t give Julia the cut direct like she was expecting.

After Julia finally gets her divorce, she’s faced with a freedom that she’s always craved and while she’s excited about that, she’s also trying to clear up the debt that she racked up while being married to Yardley. She got the divorce for herself but she’s turning her life around for her family. She’s put them through the wringer with her antics during her marriage and she’s determined to make things right for them. She’s starting with cleaning up her debt problems, only she has no idea what she’s going to do about it because the small allowance that Paul gives her won’t put a dent in it. So she goes to the one person who would know what to do but who probably wants nothing to do with her.

She goes to the Duke of Trathen, of course.

I loved how Julia was the one woman that Aidan could never have but the one woman that he always wanted. I loved how he disapproved of everything she did and judged her but deep down, he craved her like a pregnant lady craves cake. I enjoyed watching both of them fall for each other and I thought that Julia and Aidan were so perfect for each other.

This pairing is my favorite of the two books and I thoroughly enjoyed the romance, it was cute and steamy and I ate it up. I loved getting to know both Julia and Aidan separately and then getting to know them together. They were interesting characters and my heart went out to both of them. To Julia for what she went through with her first husband and to Aidan for feeling helpless to help her.

My one gripe with this story was Julia’s reasons for not wanting to marry Aidan. Ugh, that whole thing made me want to smack Julia upside her head because to put Aidan in the same catagory as Yardley made me want to smack some sense into her but in the end, it worked out so I wasn’t too unhappy with that part of the story.

I really enjoyed this story and am anxious for more from the other characters in this series. I’d love to see more from Paul as I am very fond of her character. I think the set up between him and his wife would make for a wonderful story. All in all, this was a great story and I thoroughly recommend it.

Grade: 4.5 out of 5

Abandoned at the Altar

four-half-stars


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Lightning Review: Trouble at the Wedding by Laura Lee Guhrke

Posted October 10, 2017 by Holly in Reviews | 0 Comments

Lightning Review: Trouble at the Wedding by Laura Lee GuhrkeReviewer: Holly
Trouble at the Wedding (Abandoned at the Altar, #3) by Laura Lee Guhrke
Publisher: Avon
Publication Date: December 27th 2011
Genres: Historical Romance
Pages: 384
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
three-half-stars

Annabel is about to marry the perfect man…

The last thing Miss Annabel Wheaton desires is true love. She learned the hard way that love makes a woman foolish and only leads to heartache. That’s why she agreed to marry an earl who needs her money. He’s got a pedigree and a country estate, and he won’t ever break her heart. There’s only one problem…

Christian isn’t about to let her marry that pompous prig…

Christian Du Quesne, Duke of Scarborough, thinks this stubborn heiress is about to make the biggest mistake of her life, and he’s determined to stop her. Tempting beautiful women is Christian’s forte, after all. When her family offers him a nice sum of money to stop the wedding, he’s happy to accept. Falling in love with Annabel wasn’t supposed to be part of the bargain…

Trouble at the Wedding by Laura Lee Guhrke is book 3 in the Abandoned at the Alter series. I didn’t read the other books in this series. I don’t feel I missed anything by reading out of order.

I enjoyed the setting and unconventional heroine. With the flood of regencies on the market, its refreshing to read about something different. This was a quick read for me. I enjoyed both Annabel and Christian. She’s an heiress with a fiance she know she’ll never love..something she’s quite happy about. Unfortunately, Christian knows she’s making a huge mistake marrying the pig she affianced to, so he sets about trying to convince her she’s wrong.

Ghurke writes fun, fast-paced historials. I really enjoyed the setting, the characters and the sweet romance.

3.5 out of 5

The series:

Book CoverBook CoverBook Cover

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

three-half-stars


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Guest Review: Scandal of the Year by Laura Lee Gurhke

Posted December 27, 2011 by Tracy in Reviews | 2 Comments

Publisher: Avon, Harper Collins

Tracy’s review of Scandal of the Year (Abandoned at the Altar #2) by Laura Lee Guhrke

ONE TRYST WAS ALL SHE WANTED …

From their very first meeting, Julia knew that Aidan Carr, the oh-so-proper Duke of Trathen, had a bit of the devil in him, a devil who secretly yearned for what he could not have, a devil who harbored a desire for her. So when she needed to be caught in a compromising situation,

ONE TRYST JUST WASN’T ENOUGH …

Aidan is supposed to be looking for a bride, yet his scandalous liaison with Julia is all he can think about. Hot, erotic memories of kissing her skin, falling into her bed, pulling her naked body on top of his own continue to torment and tempt him. What is it about this brazen seductress that he finds so hard to resist? And how can he stop himself from falling into her bed a second time?

Julia has known Aidan Carr, the Duke of Trathen, for many years. She likes him as a person but she loves the fact that she could use him to get her out of her horrible marriage. Now she’s free but feeling extremely guilty. She’s trying hard to keep everything inside but it’s getting harder and harder the more time they spend together. They’re spending time together because Julia has become Aidan’s social secretary.

Aidan knows that he needs to find a woman to marry. He’s been jilted twice now and needs some assistance with trying to find a wife. He knows that Julia knows everyone around and can help him make a wise choice. He hires her telling her that he’s only doing it for her help but really he can’t get the woman out of his mind. He’s a pretty straightlaced gentleman but he keeps thinking about the afternoon he spent with Julia – when her husband found them in bed together. He doesn’t remember a whole lot about the afternoon but his imagination seems to be making up things to fill in the holes and it’s making him hotter than hell. Lol

Now Aidan is after Julia and she’s running as fast as she can…or is she?

This is book 2 in the Abandoned at the Altar series and it was a good one. I have to say that I put off reading this one for a while because as much as I wanted to read it I really didn’t care for Aidan OR Julia in the first book. I couldn’t have been more wrong about either of them. Guhrke does a fantastic job of showing us that there is a TON more to each of these characters than we first believe.

Aidan is so stuffy and just an fine upstanding citizen but let’s face it – he’s a man. He’s got thoughts and feelings and testosterone just like any other man and when his thoughts start taking over he’s kind of blindsided by them. He knows he shouldn’t want Julia and now that her reputation is shot all to hell he knows he needs to disassociate but he just can’t. Julia doesn’t make it any easier with her humor and her beauty. But he also wants to know more about Julia and her life and that is the most intriguing part.

This book is just great and I loved reading Aidan and Julia’s story. If you’ve hesitated to pick this one up then take my advice and read it –it’s well worth the time. Also, the next book in the series, Trouble at the Wedding, is coming out at the end of this month.

Rating: 4 out of 5

You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place

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


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Review: Trouble at the Wedding by Laura Lee Guhrke.

Posted December 27, 2011 by Rowena in Reviews | 0 Comments

Publisher: Avon, Harper Collins


Rowena’s review of Trouble at the Wedding (Abandoned at the Altar, Book 3) by Laura Lee Guhrke.

Hero: Christian Du Quesne, Duke of Scarborough
Heroine: Miss Annabel Wheaton

New York Times bestseller Laura Lee Guhrke’s delicious Abandoned at the Altar series has historical romance readers eagerly saying, “I do!” Trouble at the Wedding is the third unforgettable walk down the aisle by the always delightful RITA Award winning author. The marriage ceremony of a Victorian heiress to the “perfect man” is most rudely interrupted by a meddlesome duke who’s convinced the bewitching lady is making a the biggest mistake of her life.

This is the third book in the Abandoned at the Altar series and to be honest, I couldn’t for the life of me remember the other books in this series which is a bummer since I enjoyed both of the other books a great deal. I’m either getting too old or I’m reading too many books and I’m getting them all switched around inside my head.

Anyway, this book follows Christian Du Quesne and Miss Annabel Wheaton as they bicker and fight their way to their happy ending. There’s a whole lot of drama going on in this book but it was still an overal enjoyable read.

My favorite part of this book was the hero, Christian Du Quesne. He was all out sexy and I wanted to bang him twelve ways to Sunday. Even when he did what he did at the wedding, I laughed out loud even as I breathed a sigh of relief. Christian was a hero that I couldn’t help but fall in love, he’s one of those flirty spice heroes that women can’t help but swoon over and well, I’m all about the swoon when I’m around those kinds of heroes and it was no different with this book. The scenes between Christian and Annabel were too cute.

On the other hand, the whole situation that Christian and Annabel found themselves in with all of the lies and the stories that they had to tell in order to keep everyone from finding out the truth caused me to roll my eyes from time to time throughout this book. Annabel’s reasons for wanting to marry Rumsford, Christian’s reasons for not wanting to get married again, Christian’s suggestion of the fake engagement, all of that crap made me want to pop them both in the head a time or two.

I enjoyed getting to know both Christian and Annabel but their thought processes about everything kind of tainted my enjoyment of the story somewhat. I mean, there was just too many lies and too many abandoning at the altar in this one book that a great deal of the time, I wanted to smack some sense into someone.

Annabel was a strong heroine, a strong heroine who knew what she wanted and went about getting it in anyway she could. She thought she didn’t want a marriage with love at the center but when she finally realizes that she doesn’t want to marry without love, it was one of those, “NOW YOU THINK THIS?” She couldn’t have come to this realization the day before the wedding or a couple of days/weeks before the wedding? Ugh, the whole dramatization of the wedding and the feelings and everything made me want to kick something but I did end up enjoying the book.

Laura Lee Guhrke did a great job of writing this story in a way that I wanted to continue reading it even when I was vexed with the characters and the situations they put themselves in. I was able to connect with both the hero and the heroine and in the end, I was glad that I read the book. It’s not my favorite of the bunch from this series but it was still a great addition to the series.

Grade: 3 out of 5.

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


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Guest Review: Trouble at the Wedding by Laura Lee Guhrke

Posted December 19, 2011 by Book Binge Guest Blogger in Reviews | 1 Comment

Publisher: Avon, Harper Collins

Judith’s review of Trouble at the Wedding (Abandoned at the Altar #3) by Laura Lee Guhrke.

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?

Readers who cut their teeth on Georgette Heyer know that whenever someone mentions “historical romance” fiction, the English Regency period flashes into the mind. But contemporary authors are doing more and more writing outside that staid and possibly overworked period of history and one of those writers is Laura Lee Guhrke and her series that is set in the early 20th century, embracing not only the burgeoning American social scene but also bringing the rapidly changing English society into the mix. In ever greater numbers, English aristocrats are looking with positive acceptance at the piles of American industrial wealth being made available to them by those wishing to marry into the British social circles. It is just such a foray into English society that is the goal of this novel’s heroine. But there’s a bit of a twist here: Annabel was an accidental heiress in the strictest sense of the word. Her missing biological father had hit the mother lode in the Yukon and all the income from those gold mines was now flowing into Annabel’s coffers.

However, money doesn’t heal all wounds! Never to be forgotten were the insults and slurs thrown at her and her family as “poor white trash” during the years when her family didn’t really know where the next meal was coming from.Now Annabel wanted it all to end, not just for herself but for her younger sister, wanting her to not ever have to endure the hurts and slights of snobs, of people who aren’t really any better than they are, but who possess money and social position. Now she has found a man who she believes is steady and predictable, in dire need of her funds, but who will give her social standing in exchange for her paying his bills. It is only after she becomes friends with a man who knows her “intended” well, that she discovers that he is a scoundrel, intending to be keeping mistresses on her dollar. As much as I like historical romance fiction, I have to own up to liking complicated, multi-layered historical romance novels the best. More often than not, they are not predictable, their plots are full of unexpected happenings and changes in scene, the characters are multi-dimensional, and the emotional content is robust, to say the least. So it is with this particular novel!

There’s lots going on, weddings that are “on” and then “off,” friendships that are jeopardized by the unexpected, a story line that embraces just about everything. Ms Guhrke has brought the ever expanding American social scene into close proximity with the British way of life, exposing readers to an American “aristocracy” or sorts that was far more closed and judgmental than some aspects of the English ton. It is a time in American history that is a great surprise to many who assume that everyone was open, adventurous, and risk-taking. Not so. And that was so not the way of things in Eastern society in the early 1900’s. All that being said, this novel is energetic, full of color, guilded with passion and sexual encounters, set against a backdrop that is alive with the sense of a rapidly changing world.

Women were finding a new sense of themselves, managing their own money, pushing society’s behavioral limits–they hadn’t quite gotten the vote yet but it wasn’t far behind–and yet, life could be difficult, even for the newly wealthy. Perhaps the most poignant reminder of that was Annabel’s hurt over having invited nearly everyone of any consequence in New York to a “coming out” ball, and having spent the evening alone–literally not one person came.So for historical romance fans, this book stands out as a truly grand literary effort that will most assuredly hold up to a couple of re-reads, and will testify to the author’s ability to engage the mind and enrapture the imagination with her words. It is a tremendous writing effort that has blossomed into a very fine novel.

I give it a rating of 4.25 out of 5.

You can read more from Judith at Dr J’s Book Place.

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


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