RITA Reader Challenge Review

His Stolen Bride by Barbara Dunlop

This RITA® Reader Challenge 2017 review was written by Lori A. 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 Lori A.'s review:

I decided to step outside my comfort zone with this book and hoo boy do I have Thoughts and Feelings. Spoilers and gifs ahead!

First off, the plot is needlessly convoluted.

Inigo from The Princes Bride saying, 'Let me explain. No...let me sum up.'

Essentially Crista’s father put shares in a diamond mine in Crista’s name but never told her about it. The mine is now rumored to be worth millions, so Vern is marrying Crista without a prenup in order to get his hands on the shares. Crista’s father hires Jackson to stop Crista from marrying Vern.

While waiting for an opportunity to talk to Crista before the wedding, Jackson overhears the groomsmen talking about how Vern is cheating on Crista. This is meant to make the reader understand Jackson’s sense of urgency when he fails to convince Crista (whom he has never met before) to not marry her fiance and decides to kidnap her until he can get proof of Vern’s wrongdoings.

Cary Elwes in Robin Hood Men in Tights looking directly at the camera in disbelief.

At this point, I am utterly confused at Jackson’s urgency. Jackson doesn’t think that Vern is going to physically hurt Crista to get the money. And in fact later Vern confesses that his plan was to divorce her within six months and without a prenup in place, he would get part or all of the diamond mine shares. So, sure Crista is at risk of being heartbroken and losing the diamond mine shares she doesn’t even know she has. But Jackson’s reasons for kidnapping her seem to have more to do with his insta-lust pants feelings for her and controlling nature rather than any real sense of saving her from marrying a jerk.

Cary Elwes blinking. He's clearly confused.

It goes downhill from there. The narrative presumes that as long as Crista talks about Stockholm Syndrome, then she’s not affected by it. Crista has the same insta-lust pants feelings for Jackson the moment she first sees him, but that doesn’t mean that her continued (and expanding) pants feelings for him aren’t tainted by Stockholm Syndrome once he kidnaps her. Jackson kisses Crista even as he acknowledges in his internal monologue that it is probably wrong to make a move on her less than an hour after kidnapping her from her own wedding…but his pants feelings will not be ignored! This makes Crista’s conflicted feelings seem even more disturbing. Her half-hearted attempts at backsassing Jackson and her ill-conceived escape attempts (one involved jumping into the ocean in a giant wedding dress with predictable almost-drowning results) don’t come across as flirtatious or funny as I think they are meant to be. Post-almost drowning, Jackson leers at Crista while she is getting out of her wet wedding dress and it is the opposite of sexy.

Cary Elwes in Robin Hood Men in Tights with a what the fuck look on his face.

It gets more convoluted from there, but eventually Crista believes Vern is a bad guy especially after he sends goons to follow her and then sets a hotel on fire to get her to come out of the hotel she’s hiding in. Jackson’s co-worker Mac and Crista’s maid of honor Ellie show up to hook up with each other and defend Jackson’s status as an honorable man and push Crista to hook up with Jackson, respectively. Crista does hook up with Jackson but then freaks out when she finds out that Jackson was sent by her father (which Jackson never told her about).

Crista eventually decides to forgive Jackson when she goes to see her father and finds out that Jackson isn’t getting any money out of this entire situation. Yes, he kidnapped Crista, held her hostage for a few days, had a friend of his buy her jewelry business to keep it safe, and used tons of his company’s time and resources to get dirt on Vern and keep tabs on Crista without getting a single penny for it. And somehow that doesn’t raise the biggest red flag for Crista; it makes her realize he must really love her.

Cary Elwes in The Princes Bride saying, Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.

Jackson suggests they get married in Vegas RIGHT NOW to get Vern to back off. Because of course the man who tried to burn down a hotel to get at Crista is just going to walk away from millions of dollars and a year-long con if she marries someone else! But that is exactly what the book suggests: that all of their problems are over now that they are heading to Vegas to get married.

 

A gif from The Princess Bride - INCONCEIVABLE!

 

I will say this for the book: it kept me reading until the end. I was engrossed in it and it sped by really quickly. It was like a soap opera: a ridiculously convoluted plot but it sucks you in. In the end, I think the main problem was that the author was trying too hard to justify the ridiculous premise and she relied on telling rather than showing. Crista and Jackson objectify each other a whole lot, but there is little else to justify their love for each other at the end. Their actions speak louder than any words they say or think. Jackson’s escalating involvement in and control over Crista’s life sends up all sorts of red flags. Crista spends nearly all of the book without any agency and based on Jackson’s willingness to kidnap her when he disagrees with her choices, I don’t see her regaining that agency anytime soon.

The hag from The Princess Bride aggressively booing.

I’m also more confused than ever about Vern. Supposedly his family is the con-man equivalent of the mafia, but he courts Crista very sweetly for a year. And then his plan isn’t to dump her into the river a few months into the marriage but to quietly divorce her in six months and use the power of lawyers (and Crista’s ignorance) to get the shares of the diamond mine. The hotel fire is the worst he gets and even that resulted in zero casualties. Now he’s going to abandon the scheme completely because Crista has married someone else. So it’s like the only reason it might possibly be okay to have kidnapped Crista (Vern being violent) is completely off the table. In the end, Crista decides not to marry the man who was going to con her out of money in favor of marrying a man who kidnapped her, emotionally abused her, and displayed jealous and controlling tendencies within minutes of meeting her.

Vizzini from The Princess Bride laughing until he dies.

Whirlwind romances are hard to pull off and it’s even harder to buy the romance when someone is leaping from marrying a person they have known for a while to marrying someone they just met a few days ago. Add in the kidnapping and controlling tendencies of the hero and the whole thing just fell apart for me.

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His Stolen Bride by Barbara Dunlop

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Add Your Comment →

  1. DonnaMarie says:

    Hot tea, Princess Bride gifs and a great review. Nice way to start a Sunday. Thanks Lori.

  2. kitkat9000 says:

    Thanks for this review. I’m slightly ocd and can’t not finish a book. So when it gets to the point of having to put it down rather than throw it at a wall, I skip to the last 30 pages. Doing this satisfies my need to “finish” the book as well as resolving the plot. Very, very rarely am I tempted to go back and read what I’ve skipped. This would definitely be a skipper, and judging by your review it would have happened in the first 60 pages. At most. Too many books, too little time: I refuse to waste what time I have reading stories that will only irritate me.

    And many thanks for the lovely gifs.

  3. Rebecca says:

    So glad this review has re-appeared! Triple points for combining Robin Hood: Men in Tights with The Princess Bride. Could someone please do a GIF of Cary Elwes saying “Unlike most Robin Hoods, I can do an English accent” and use it for dubious potato rage “Regencies” and so on? It would make me happy while grading papers. (For the record, Buttercup can keep Wesley and they can be dumb blondes together. I’m team Iñigo all the way. But I quite liked Robin Hood.)

  4. Jennifer in GA says:

    So what you’re saying is that this whole book could’ve been avoided with a pre-nup??

  5. NinjaPenguin says:

    Anytime a hero thinks it’s easier to kidnap someone instead of having a conversation I’m out. Thanks for taking one for the team! And especially thanks for the (Cary Elwes) memories!

  6. LauraL says:

    And why didn’t Crista’s father insist on a pre-nup since he knew she was worth millions? Why would a guy offer to kidnap and then marry a young lady worth millions for no compensation? So many questions. Unless there is a Diamond Mine Bride Divorcee sequel in the works.

    Enjoyed the review and the gifs!

  7. cbackson says:

    Sorry, the lawyer in me couldn’t get past the fact that an entire book depends on the idea that her inheritance would be considered marital property in a divorce (spoiler alert: in most states, it wouldn’t). When you need to know the choice of law in order to determine if you’re going to keep reading a book, I think it’s a failure…

  8. Catherine says:

    I love your review! Sounds like you disliked this one even more than I did. And I’m fascinated by the fact that we both found it compelling reading in the sense that it kept us reading, fast, to the end. Which is certainly evidence of writing ability, despite the terrible plot and convenient characterisation.

  9. BellaInAus says:

    Wait, Wait. She shouldn’t marry Vern because he didn’t do a pre-nup, but in the end she goes off into the Vegas sunset with … um… watsisname… without one?

  10. Rose says:

    This was an absolutely perfect use of gifs. A+++++ and ten thousand points to you.

  11. Jazzlet says:

    Vern knows about the shares in the diamond mine but she doesn’t? Why didn’t her father just tell her he’d bought them for her? Sorry, the rst of you ae right about all the abusive behaviour, but the whole damn story coculd have been circumvented if her fther had just told her in the first place.

  12. Jazzlet says:

    ok sorry about the complete lack of editing there.

  13. Antipodean Shenanigans says:

    @kitkat9000 that is a genius idea for DNFs. I’m using this strategy from here on out.

  14. chacha1 says:

    the gifs, they are excellent;
    the book sounds dreadful.

  15. Patricia M. says:

    I am with cbackson. I don’t think that there is any jurisdiction in which her property before marriage would be marital assets that the bad guy could get in a divorce. If he is counting on her ignorance, the dad just has to tell daughter’s divorce lawyer about the shares. Also, the lawyer in me says that there could be tax consequences for the daughter to own those shares so it really doesn’t make sense that he never told her about them. It makes no sense to keep it a secret, especially if he suspects a con. But I loved the gifs!

  16. ClaireC says:

    Thank you for the summary and most especially thank you for the gifs! Agree that it seems like this whole book could have been avoided with a conversation between dad & daughter – “Hey, daughter, I bought you some shares in a diamond mine. Make sure you note that on your taxes” “Thanks Dad! Just in case, do you think I might need a pre-nup for this marriage I agreed to?” And, done!

  17. Quidnunc says:

    Thank goodness I was not the only person baffled by the dad giving her the shares and not telling her. Who does that? It sounds like the dad is treating his daughter as an incompetent idiot. How would Vern know and not her, especially long enough ago to start the con? The whole review I was fixated on that. I agree Vern wouldn’t get them in a divorce, but would if she “died”. HIs family is immoral enough to steal, but not immoral enough to kill for a large payday?

  18. Louise says:

    the lawyer in me couldn’t get past the fact that an entire book depends on the idea that her inheritance would be considered marital property
    In the Shared Universe of Fiction–where most books, movies and TV shows take place–“community property” means that the instant you get married, everything you own and everything you will ever acquire becomes 50% your spouse’s property.

  19. Catherine says:

    For those wondering about the dad giving her the shares and not telling her, she doesn’t speak to her father, because he is in prison for being a con-man.

    Don’t get me wrong, the plot is still packed to the brim with stupid, but this particular instance actually does make sense.

  20. Nadia says:

    Absolute gif squeeeeeeee

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