Scan barcode
A review by baileams22
Wicked Delights of a Bridal Bed by Tracy Anne Warren
1.0
*MAJOR SPOILER* Can we start a petition asking historical romance authors to stop bringing soldiers who die at war back from the dead? The whole “I was found gravely wounded by our enemies and kept as a prisoner of war for years but I have finally returned to England” thing has been really played out.
I was really hoping to love this book because unrequited love is my all time favourite trope. This is a new to me author so I kept my expectations low and man did she limbo right under them. Let’s talk about Adam. When there’s an unrequited love plot I expect loads of pining, and Mallory’s grief over her dead fiancé was a perfect opportunity for some top notch pining. Instead, Adam decides that Mallory has been grieving too long (only a year for a man she loved and hoped to spend the rest of her life with) and is going to insert himself in all her free time and convince her to stop caring entirely for her dead fiancé and love him instead. I HATED how insensitive Adam was. I also hated that he fell in love with Mallory when she was a teenager and he was a grown ass adult. Like, he was just off to a really bad start.
And then a bunch of nothing happened. They were caught in a scandal and forced to marry. This whole book lacked direction and the pacing really dragged but the start of their marriage, which should be filled with delightful falling in love moments, was so boring. This was in part because nothing really happened, and also because these characters had zero chemistry.
But the absolute worst is when Mallory’s fiancé returns to London, not dead, and seeks out Mallory at her family home that her and Adam are visiting. Adam shows no sensitivity in telling Michael, the fiancé, that Mallory is now married. And to make matters worse, after Michael leaves Adam forbids Mallory from ever seeing him again, and refuses her when she asks if she can just reach out and explain the situation since Michael is surely confused and heartbroken. I don’t mind a little jealousy and possessiveness in a romance novel but I hate when the hero thinks he has the right to dictate what a heroine can and cannot do. And Mallory is so weak and boring that she just accepts this! She waits months before reaching out to the man she once loved to explain why she married and that they can’t see each other anymore. When Michael replies Adam intercepts the letter, reads it, and burns it! What a piece of shit! He also plans to have the butler intercept all of Mallory’s future letters so that she can no longer have any contact with Michael. When the third act breakup finally happens I honestly didn’t want Mallory to go back to Adam because he’s such a possessive and domineering piece of shit. You know the hero is bad when you hope the heroine runs off with her ex. But no, Mallory actually apologizes to him which was the defining moment when I decided not to read any more from this author because I cannot stand stupid women who think men are allowed to do abusive things so long as their doing it out of passion or whatever.
All in all, absolute trash book.
I was really hoping to love this book because unrequited love is my all time favourite trope. This is a new to me author so I kept my expectations low and man did she limbo right under them. Let’s talk about Adam. When there’s an unrequited love plot I expect loads of pining, and Mallory’s grief over her dead fiancé was a perfect opportunity for some top notch pining. Instead, Adam decides that Mallory has been grieving too long (only a year for a man she loved and hoped to spend the rest of her life with) and is going to insert himself in all her free time and convince her to stop caring entirely for her dead fiancé and love him instead. I HATED how insensitive Adam was. I also hated that he fell in love with Mallory when she was a teenager and he was a grown ass adult. Like, he was just off to a really bad start.
And then a bunch of nothing happened. They were caught in a scandal and forced to marry. This whole book lacked direction and the pacing really dragged but the start of their marriage, which should be filled with delightful falling in love moments, was so boring. This was in part because nothing really happened, and also because these characters had zero chemistry.
But the absolute worst is when Mallory’s fiancé returns to London, not dead, and seeks out Mallory at her family home that her and Adam are visiting. Adam shows no sensitivity in telling Michael, the fiancé, that Mallory is now married. And to make matters worse, after Michael leaves Adam forbids Mallory from ever seeing him again, and refuses her when she asks if she can just reach out and explain the situation since Michael is surely confused and heartbroken. I don’t mind a little jealousy and possessiveness in a romance novel but I hate when the hero thinks he has the right to dictate what a heroine can and cannot do. And Mallory is so weak and boring that she just accepts this! She waits months before reaching out to the man she once loved to explain why she married and that they can’t see each other anymore. When Michael replies Adam intercepts the letter, reads it, and burns it! What a piece of shit! He also plans to have the butler intercept all of Mallory’s future letters so that she can no longer have any contact with Michael. When the third act breakup finally happens I honestly didn’t want Mallory to go back to Adam because he’s such a possessive and domineering piece of shit. You know the hero is bad when you hope the heroine runs off with her ex. But no, Mallory actually apologizes to him which was the defining moment when I decided not to read any more from this author because I cannot stand stupid women who think men are allowed to do abusive things so long as their doing it out of passion or whatever.
All in all, absolute trash book.