RITA Reader Challenge Review

His Stolen Bride by Barbara Dunlop

This RITA® Reader Challenge 2017 review was written by Catherine Heloise. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Short Contemporary Romance category.

The summary:

To love, honor and abduct a beautiful bride… Only from New York Times bestselling author Barbara Dunlop. 

Will you take this woman?” Yes. As a favor to his estranged father, investigator Jackson Rush agrees to kidnap Crista Corday from her high society wedding. His job is to stop her marriage to a con man, not seduce the alluring Crista himself. But two days together, on the run from her fiancé’s shady family, obliterate every rule…

Crista has no idea of the danger drawing near. Jackson can’t reveal it without divulging who really sent him. And that’s a risk that could cost him everything…unless Crista will put herself under his passionate protection forever.

Here is Catherine Heloise's review:

I picked this book to review because I’ve seen my share of kidnapped brides in historicals, where the premise can be more or less convincing and usually involves feuding families, Scotland and/or fake highwaymen. These are all fun things, but they are a little harder to squeeze convincingly into a contemporary novel set in America. I wanted to know what excuse Ms Dunlop was going to come up with for this kidnapping, and whether she could make it work.

The answer to my first question was – he kidnaps her for her own good, of course! I should have seen that one coming. But yes, it turns out that Crista, our heroine, is secretly (so secretly that even she doesn’t know about it) the heiress to a diamond mine, and Vern, the man she is about to marry, is from a criminal family and is bent on getting his hands on the loot. Also, he has a mistress, just in case there was any doubt in your mind about him being Bad News. So Jackson, who has found out about the diamonds from Crista’s father and the mistress from gossip among the groomsmen, kidnaps her to stop this happening.

If you are wondering why Jackson seized on this particular solution to the problem of Crista’s impending wedding, you are not alone. To be fair, Dunlop does a good job of setting this up so that it is not an entirely irrational response to the situation – Jackson only finds out about the mistress thing a few minutes before the ceremony, so he really doesn’t have a lot of time to come up with a better idea, but when it comes down to it, this is his reasoning:

Then, unexpectedly, she twisted her head to look back again. He felt that same rush of emotion tighten his chest cavity. He knew with instant certainty that she deserved better than Vern. It might be none of his business, but surely she wouldn’t tolerate a husband who’d sneak off and sleep with a string of mistresses.

So obviously Jackson waits until the bridesmaids enter the church, and then abducts Crista. What other option does he have?

Crista, understandably, does not take kindly to this, and I did like her repeated and quite smart attempts to escape early in the book, though it must be said that jumping into the sea in her wedding dress was a rather questionable decision. Perhaps it’s just because I’m an Australian and have had it drummed into me since early childhood that clothes get super heavy in water, and can drag you down fast (one of the first set of ‘water awareness’ tasks they make you do as a very young child is to jump into the water with all your clothes and shoes on over your bathers, and you have to get them off as fast as you can so that you can get back up to the surface. This leaves you with a VERY visceral impression of why it is a bad idea to jump into the water with your clothes on if you can possibly help it. But maybe people in other countries don’t do these sorts of lessons?), but how could she not realise that swimming in a wedding dress was never going to work?

Her other attempts are smarter, and keep Jackson nicely on his toes during the first part of the book, without making him look stupid – always a tricky balance to maintain. The attraction between them is pretty instantaneous, and while I didn’t entirely buy this, I think that was more about my cynicism rather than a fault in the writing. And I do like both Crista and Jackson, and the secondary characters, very much.

Which brings me to my second question – can Ms Dunlop make this work. And the answer is…mostly. Dunlop definitely knows how to write engaging characters and to keep you turning pages. I liked Crista and Jackson, and wanted them to be together, and while I was reading their story, I was completely engaged in it. The trouble is that whenever I took a break from reading and wasn’t caught up in the spell of the story, I found myself going, wait, what, that doesn’t make sense. The story doesn’t hold together very well if you actually step back and try to analyse it.

I mean, Crista and Jackson are under a lot of pressure throughout the book, and that is not going to lead to smart decision-making, but still, some of their choices are far stupider than they need to be, and all too often, it’s the plot that requires them to be stupid. For example, Crista’s leap into the sea in her wedding dress may be dim, but it’s a great way to get Jackson’s hands on her body (she can’t get out of that wet dress on her own!), thus providing a moment of sexual tension. And Jackson’s decision to keep on not telling Crista about the diamond mine and only get around to it five minutes after he first seduces her is a fantastic way to make Crista immediately distrust him and think here’s someone else who is only after her money.

Also, I couldn’t help noticing that Jackson really makes the decision to kidnap Crista very much on the spur of the moment, and that his employees and colleagues don’t really question this, except in a somewhat jovial manner. Given the blatant illegality of this, I feel they should be objecting rather more strenuously.

It’s all a little odd, especially as when the plot isn’t demanding that the characters behave stupidly, they are actually quite mature and sensible. Crista is smart enough to realise that this situation is deeply strange and that making life-changing decisions without thinking them through is a bad idea, so she deliberately steps back and tries to give herself time and the opportunity to seek advice. Jackson, who is a private investigator, does seem to be quite good at thinking ahead and being strategic, when his hormones aren’t involved. And yet they both take far too many opportunities to do dim things.

Another thing that bothered me was a minor structural issue, or maybe just a missed opportunity. A character is introduced early in the book who has a great deal of potential to confuse matters nicely and provide all sorts of useful conflict.

Show Spoiler
Vern’s brother tries to warn Crista off marrying Vern and appears to be on her side at the start, and I was waiting for him to come back and either a) try to marry Crista himself; b) turn up, re-insinuate himself into Crista’s good graces and then betray her; or c) try (and maybe even succeed) to rescue Crista when Vern turns nasty later in the book. 

But alas, we never see him again after that first scene. And this is doubly frustrating, because given the ways Ms Dunlop has to contrive things to keep the conflict going at various points in the book, it seems positively wasteful not to make use of this eminently useful character. (Is she saving him for another book?)

I’m giving this book a C, because it was a fairly enjoyable read, but not a memorable one. It’s the sort of book you read while you are on holiday when you want to amuse yourself without having to engage your brain too much, but which you have forgotten by the time you return home. The hero and heroine are both decent people, there is no extreme violence or anything else to give you nightmares, and you aren’t left secretly wishing that the heroine would elope with the best friend or something. But there isn’t a lot to it. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it, and I don’t have any particular inclination to read it again.

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His Stolen Bride by Barbara Dunlop

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  1. Lisa says:

    Wow, we don’t do Water Awareness sounds like an excellent plan! We do not do that here!

  2. DonnaMarie says:

    Thank you for the review, Catherine. Well done.

  3. ClaireC says:

    I definitely did not learn the bit about wet clothes in my swimming classes as a kid in Michigan, but it’s a good idea! And thanks for a good review.

  4. Rose says:

    The swimming exercise you described sounds phenomenal. I live by the sea and fully intend to try that out this summer, just in case I fall off a boat with my wedges on.

    I also am a fan of the nutty historical Scottish/highwayman kidnapping trope, and I think you identified a finely tuned but serious dissonance between when it works and when it doesn’t (for me, at least). In the excerpt you chose, the hero thinks “…surely she wouldn’t tolerate a husband who’d sneak off and sleep with a string of mistresses.”

    Probably not, but honestly, what does he know? Maybe she’s cool with it. Maybe they have a business arrangement the hero knows nothing about. Maybe she’s asexual and into the idea of a loving marriage but no intimacy. Whatever. The theme works for me when the hero knows he’s doing something wrong, respects (or at least acknowledges) that he doesn’t know what the heroine wants, but has to abscond with her regardless for Reasons. It’s when the hero thinks to himself that he knows what’s best for her that the story loses me.

    I understand the story has more nuance than this, thanks to your excellent review, but that bit particularly stuck out to me. 🙂 Thanks for posting!

  5. Catherine says:

    I was just re-reading what I had written and thinking, oh dear, that really was a long digression about wet clothes while swimming – I’m amused that it seems to have been the thing that captured everyone’s imagination so far!

    And yes, water safety is a huge thing in Australia, because unfortunately drowning is still far too common a cause of death in kids. It was only when one of my friends moved to Germany that I realised that other countries *don’t* have government-subsidised water safety and swimming programs for young children. We did them every summer – starting with learning to open your eyes under water and not panic, and yes, how to get out of clothes if you have fallen in the water, but also the basics of how to rescue someone else who is in trouble (throwing them something inflatable, throwing a rope to tow them in, etc) without risking your own safety.

    (The lessons didn’t actually cover not jumping into the middle of the sea in a wedding dress with a train, but I feel it was implied.)

    Also, Rose, I’m sure you have thought of this already, but if not, make sure you have a spotter who can help pull you out if you get into trouble, if you plan to give this one a try?

  6. Rose says:

    @Catherine, thank you–I would never leap into the sea without a spotter, life vest or no! 😉

  7. Catherine says:

    @Rose good to know! Sorry, my mother’s father was a surf lifesaver, so I was raised to be PARANOID about the sea… (I mean, I love the sea, but I know it’s totally out to get me if it can.) And one never knows what is common sense to someone else.

    But yes, it occurs to me that another use for that exercise as an adult is figuring out which clothes are the safest ones to fall into the water in, so that one can dress appropriately while sailing etc. Which is kind of cool, too. I’d never thought of it that way, because at age five I was obviously wearing what I was told to wear!!

  8. Rose says:

    @Catherine oh, ocean safety advice is always a good thing!! And appreciated. 🙂

    My little sweep of sea is currently plagued by sharks, so if you happen to discover which clothes are best to wear when falling into sharky waves, let me know!

  9. Catherine says:

    Can’t help you with that one, alas, though we were told that if you are attacked by a shark, you should try to punch it on the nose, because that apparently stuns it. I have no idea whether this is good advice or not. Personally, I have no wish to get close enough to find out.

    Whereabouts is your sweep of sea, if I may ask?

    Also, and just to drag this back *somewhat* in the direction of actual romance novels, I think you are spot on about why the kidnapping thing doesn’t work well for me here. I couldn’t put my finger on it, because I was too busy going ‘wait, who THINKS like that’, but yes, it never seems to cross the hero’s mind that he might have got it wrong. He does realise and respect that the heroine has every reason to be scared and unhappy with the situation, but he’s positive at every moment that he has made the right decision for her, and that all he has to do is to get her to believe him, and everything will be fine.

    (Needless to say, he’s wrong about that, but somehow the book makes it out that she is being unreasonable to not believe his evidence, without addressing the fact that maybe he should have considered that kidnapping her might not have been the optimal strategy here…)

  10. Rose says:

    @Catherine I live on a cold, lovely little cove in the northeast corner of the US–I imagine it’s quite different from Australian beaches! But in the past decade we’ve been overrun with great white sharks, and I saw Jaws at too young an age, so suffice it to say I’m more careful than ever about boating safety.

    And good, I’m glad I explained my thoughts reasonably well! It’s not the kidnapping itself that’s so jarring (though of course it would normally be horrifying, but this is a romance novel, so we’ll let it pass) but more the hero’s assumption that he’s correct and all he needs to do is convince the heroine to change her mind. Maybe, but also maybe he’s a dingbat.

  11. kkw says:

    I spent some formative years in beach towns (also in the NE of the US) and I’m pretty sure there were some efforts made to teach kids water safety. For several weeks I absolutely refused to put my face under water, and then Jaws came out, and none of the kids would even go in the water, and my weird stubbornness was the least of their worries. The beaches were deserted, it was suddenly unusually brave for anyone to go in past their knees, so maybe they (the school? the town? lifeguards? I don’t know who was responsible for the program, but since I was there I can guarantee it was mandatory) just gave up.

    I can at least doggie paddle and tread water and float, and I promise I would never contemplate jumping in wearing a wedding dress, but I’m honestly less scared of sharks or drowning than of having water up my nose, or god forbid, touching my eyeballs.

    Also, relevant to oceanic wedding dress interests, there’s an old movie, L’Atalante, that has an incredible scene – I mean the whole movie is gorgeous, but there’s an underwater scene that is amazing, just hauntingly beautiful. It’s worth noting that the bride is not *actually* there, it’s some movie magic.

  12. Gloriamarie says:

    I find this review kinda confusing. In the summary, it says ““Will you take this woman?” Yes. As a favor to his estranged father, investigator Jackson Rush agrees to kidnap Crista Corday from her high society wedding. ” Which implied to me that Jackson was asked to kidnap her, yet throughout the review, the reviewer talks about his spur of the moment decision to do it.

    So was Jackson asked or was it spur of the moment?

    Thanks for the clarification.

    Gotta say, jumping into the ocean in a wedding gown sounds TSTL to me.

  13. Catherine says:

    The blurb is a bit misleading. He was asked to stop Crista from marrying Vern, and really was fairly ambivalent about the whole idea until he saw her. Kidnapping her was entirely his own idea – it may have been mentioned in sarcastic jest, but I don’t think so (the book has disappeared from my Kobo so I can’t check). He certainly wasn’t planning to do it until he saw her – from memory, he was sort of lurking around going, should I say something, until his gaze met hers and the urge to kidnap her apparently became overwhelming.

  14. Cathy says:

    The school kids in our fishing town in AK have swimming lessons weekly from kindergarten through 6th grade. They are all taught how heavy clothing is in water, and in the upper grades must go in fully clothed once a year. Not every town does it, but they should.

  15. DevotedReader says:

    We did that clothes thing in MI when I was in High School. It was so hard! Thanks for the review. I, like you, wondered how a kidnapping would work in a modern book so this is helpful.

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