Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Game of Hearts by Kate Donovan

Game of Hearts  (Happily Ever After Company, #1)
Grade-C+
Hotness Level-Blaze
Kink Level-None
Series-Happily Ever After Company #1
Genre-historical, mail order bride
Reviewed by Kate

Megan and Suzannah have been best friends since they were little girls. They promised each other that they would get married at the same time and live close enough to each other that their children would be able to play together.

They consult a matchmaker to arrange marriages for them. When they are unable to find two acceptable husbands that live close enough together, they decide Megan will accept a contract with Dennis Riordan. Suzannah will accompany Megan on her journey and then pick a husband at that point. I can't see anything going wrong, can you?

While on their journey, Megan meets and falls in love with Ben, but she feels unable to marry him due to her marriage contract. Ben follows them to their destination and is there when the girls discover that Dennis is really Aengus Yates.

Suzannah has been in love with Aengus Yates since she was a little girl. But he has broken her heart twice already. Once when, at age 11, she asked him to wait for her to be old enough to marry, but her married someone else instead. The second time, when he left his wife and two young sons and never came back.

Aengus can't marry Megan, despite their contract, once he sees how much she loves Ben. But can Suzannah marry Aengus after he has already broken her heart?

I think you can tell that the story is a bit involved. Definitely much easier to read than it is to summarize. What I've written about above is just the first half of the book. The scond half follows Suzannah as she adjusts to marriage and tries to help Aengus mend the broken relationship with his sons.

While I enjoyed the story, I don't think I'll be buying the other books in the series.

3 comments:

  1. Kate, was this a Kindle freebie? You just can't turn down a mail order bride story, can you? I'm very impressed that you won't be reading the rest of the story - I know it's a weakness for you! :)
    ~Anne

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  2. Yes, it was a freebie when I got it (now it's $3). The other books in the series are connected only by the matchmaker, so it makes it slightly easier to turn down the rest of the them. Of course, if they were ever freebies, I'd be all over them.
    ~ Kate

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  3. I knew you wouldn't be able to resist a FREE mail order bride story!

    ReplyDelete