Reviews

The Captive by Grace Burrowes

abcace's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

readingwithemmett's review

5.0

This book has my heart. I absolutely loved this story and this book. Yes, it took me over two weeks to read it, but it was pretty much perfection. The main characters were perfect, especially for each other. I loved how they did these little things for each other and opened up to each other about everything. There were a lot of shocking moments, but this book was just amazing. I did find the ending to be a little rushed, but the story was already over 400 pages, so I'm assuming that it was just due to the fact that it couldn't have been longer. But I do wish it was. I wish I would have gotten a little more because I needed that from these characters. Their time together was just amazing and I don't know what else to say honestly. Just know that I loved this book so much, and I recommend it!

carolagaram's review against another edition

emotional hopeful medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

3.5

elspethm's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I really enjoyed this book. It was dark, and layered, but it was a true "second chance" story where all the main characters (including the daughter) got their second chance.

Christian Severn was captured during the war and tortured for a number of months (according to him in the book it was months, and Gilly's marriage was years). He is finally let go and goes back to his life in London a shell of a man and thinking only of revenge.

Gilly was married to an abusive Earl for 8 years. Meanwhile she had a relationship with Christian's young daughter. She convinces Christian to go back to see her and try to help her start speaking again. 

The two stay in Christian's country house and both learn to get past (as much as they can) their scars and PTSD, while attempting to help Lucy move ahead from her mother's death and her father's career as a soldier.

Meanwhile there is a mystery that they have to solve while they are caring for each other and falling in love. I really liked all the characters and was happy to see them all have a HEA. While I would have liked to have seen Gilly get her true wish of children, I was impressed that Burrowes didn't magically make her pregnant during the book and epilogue. I hope that somewhere in the future that Gilly got her wish, though. 

I received a promotional copy of the reissue and am giving an honest review.

planetarypan's review

4.0

A bit overdramatic at times, but still a lovely read.

jennifer_jennifer's review

dark emotional hopeful medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

ufcasey's review

4.0

3.5 stars

The depiction of dealing with trauma was 4 stars, but the romance and plot was more like 3 stars. If the book was solely focused on them dealing with their pasts while trying to open up to each other in the present, I think I would have enjoyed this book more. I thought how intuitive Gillian was about what Christian needed and how to deal with him was really great. Likewise, Christian's interactions with his daughter really made me happy. However the romance between them wasn't that strong and I wasn't particularly sold on it - it felt forced. And then there was a whole other secondary plot going on that I truly wasn't interested in. So parts of this book were REALLY GREAT and parts of it were kind of bland. I'd be willing to read another book by this author.

misspentdays's review

4.0

Highly enjoyable read. Grace Burrowes has yet to disappoint me and this title continues this favorable trend. She once again manages to bring life to a story within the confines of the expectations of the romance reader. Looking forward to reading The Traitor.

tmdavis's review

5.0

I very much enjoyed this. It was my first by this author but definitely not my last. A very gentle story of two broken people who come to find each other and help each other heal. I can only hope there will be a fourth book in this series to tell St. Just's story.

wildflowerz76's review

3.0

A few weeks ago, I found one of those lists online, "the best romances" or some such. Since I'm always looking for new stuff to read, I combed the list and anything that looked interesting I added to my list of stuff to look for at the used book store (if the library didn't have it). This was one of those. My last trip to the used book store netted me a TON of romances. I'd just read a couple of Halloween-type books that sucked arse, so I figured I'd give a fluffy, easy romance a try.

This wasn't nearly as fluffy or easy as I'm used to. The story starts out with Christian being tortured. It wasn't really what I wanted to read. But I kept on. I was bored at first. This just wasn't my thing. But I'm glad I stuck with it. This was a different type of romance than most of the ones of this ilk I've read. The two main characters didn't start out hating each other. There was no grand misunderstanding to move the plot along that could have been solved had they just TALKED to each other. None of that. I did get a little bogged down in that whole middle part where it felt like nothing much was going on to move the plot along, but I did appreciate that this book didn't follow the formula.