The Scottish Bride

January 8, 2001
Coulter completes her quartet of Regency-set historical romances (The Sherbrooke Bride, etc.) about the Sherbrooke family with a refreshing twist. In contrast to the rakish men featured in the three preceding books, the hero here, Tysen Sherbrooke, is a dour vicar and a widower with three children who arrives in Scotland after inheriting a barony and a castle. With admirable bravado, he rescues Mary Rose Fordyce from the clutches of a local man who will do anything, including rape, to force her into marriage with him. Tysen is outraged at this turn of events, and is surprised as well to discover he has feelings for Mary Rose, feelings that don't conform to his piousness. Unlike many romances where the heroine reforms a rake, here the heroine brings chaotic light into the ordered life of a prudish and seemingly humorless hero. The sheer number of characters in this finale is staggering, but loyal fans will be thrilled to note that many of the protagonists from Coulter's earlier installments are included in the cast. While there are some inconsistencies in character, particularly involving Mary Rose's mother, Coulter's rich development of Tysen and Mary Rose more than compensate.

January 1, 2001
Coulter continues her historical Bride series, which includes " The Heiress Bride" (1992), with this welcome addition about an unorthodox English aristocratic family from the regency period. The youngest Sherbrooke brother, the serious vicar Tysen, is now a widower with three children and has just inherited an estate in Scotland. He sets out to visit his new property, believing that his children are with his eldest brother, the earl, but finds instead that his ten-year-old daughter, Meggie, has accompanied him because she believes that he is too naive for his own good and wants to protect him from harm. Sure enough, complications arise when he tries to help a neighbor, Mary Rose Fordyce, who is shunned because she was born out of wedlock and subjected to an attempted rape by one of the local gentry, whom she refuses to marry. Naturally Tysen and Meggie come to the rescue, making Coulter's latest a delightful romp that will surely please historical romance fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2001, American Library Association.)