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A review by simplyalexandra
Honor Bound by Brenda Novak
? Stars - I recommend if you enjoy historical romance with quite a bit of action/adventure... however a caution that the ending may leave you disgruntled...
This story follows Jeanette, a young Frenchwoman living in England. She must marry to secure her family's fate during the war, and she must marry a much older man to do so. On her wedding night, she finds out that her husband has horrible things planned for her, and she flees. Taking refuge on a naval ship, she disguises herself as a boy in hopes of making it to her English relative in London. Lieutenant Treynor was a cabin boy once himself, and takes pity on the boy, but once he discovers that the cabin boy is in fact a woman he must decide whether to follow his instinct, or the rules of his job.
Overall I really enjoyed this book. It was action packed, it was steamy from time to time... I enjoyed that it took place mostly on a ship, I kind of have a thing for the pirates movies (disheveled Commodore Norrington, anyone?), and even though this is not about pirates.. I liked that setting quite a bit. There was a lot of good detail about life on a ship, duties for the ship's crew, historical details related to the war, etc. which I really appreciated. I liked the characters, though we never found out very much about Treynor's past. I liked Jeanette too, though it has moments where you roll your eyes, and go "Jeannette... why?! That's a dumb thing to do on a ship where you have no idea what's going on...!" - but she was also pretty brave, and tried to stick up for herself. I found the romance to be a wee bit questionable from time to time, mostly I think because the time period is very, "I own you because you're my wife"... but ... it wasn't too terrible. Then it just ended (SPOILER) like a Jane Austen novel, or an "inspirational romance".. they get married, and then the author skips the wedding night...! which I found super confusing... and mildly enraging after you know, 11 hours of reading... waiting for the characters to *finally* be together. To clarify, I love Austen, and I enjoy "inspirational romance"... but when you go to the trouble of describing A LOT of other romantic bits, and then don't give the readers the full thing...? Rude. Oy. I cannot even. So the story was good, but the ending fell flat for me. Blargh. I'm too frustrated to give this a rating.
This story follows Jeanette, a young Frenchwoman living in England. She must marry to secure her family's fate during the war, and she must marry a much older man to do so. On her wedding night, she finds out that her husband has horrible things planned for her, and she flees. Taking refuge on a naval ship, she disguises herself as a boy in hopes of making it to her English relative in London. Lieutenant Treynor was a cabin boy once himself, and takes pity on the boy, but once he discovers that the cabin boy is in fact a woman he must decide whether to follow his instinct, or the rules of his job.
Overall I really enjoyed this book. It was action packed, it was steamy from time to time... I enjoyed that it took place mostly on a ship, I kind of have a thing for the pirates movies (disheveled Commodore Norrington, anyone?), and even though this is not about pirates.. I liked that setting quite a bit. There was a lot of good detail about life on a ship, duties for the ship's crew, historical details related to the war, etc. which I really appreciated. I liked the characters, though we never found out very much about Treynor's past. I liked Jeanette too, though it has moments where you roll your eyes, and go "Jeannette... why?! That's a dumb thing to do on a ship where you have no idea what's going on...!" - but she was also pretty brave, and tried to stick up for herself. I found the romance to be a wee bit questionable from time to time, mostly I think because the time period is very, "I own you because you're my wife"... but ... it wasn't too terrible. Then it just ended (SPOILER) like a Jane Austen novel, or an "inspirational romance".. they get married, and then the author skips the wedding night...! which I found super confusing... and mildly enraging after you know, 11 hours of reading... waiting for the characters to *finally* be together. To clarify, I love Austen, and I enjoy "inspirational romance"... but when you go to the trouble of describing A LOT of other romantic bits, and then don't give the readers the full thing...? Rude. Oy. I cannot even. So the story was good, but the ending fell flat for me. Blargh. I'm too frustrated to give this a rating.