The Hostage Bride

June 1, 1998
Feather, whose latest series were the V series (Vanity, Vice, Violet, etc.) and the Charm Bracelet trilogy (The Emerald Swan, The Silver Rose, etc.), sets her new Brides trilogy during the English Civil War. Each installment will focus on one of three young women joined by friendship and fate. Portia Worth's uncle, Cato Granville, is a Roundhead and mortal enemy of Rufus Decatur, a nobleman who has sworn fealty to King Charles in hopes of winning back his family's property and honor. Rufus's men mistakenly kidnap Portia, but when no money is forthcoming, the two outsiders--an unwanted hostage and a dispossessed noble--find a common bond. It's a fine romantic convention though rather marred by Portia's unduly prickly and bellicose nature. The author does a good job of capturing the period--the class differences; life in a military encampment and during a siege; and the fickle loyalties of the day. But Feather can also stumble into breathless melodrama in dialogue and description: "He'd nurtured his anger with a fierce flame, but now as he tried with his own breath to return the living warmth to her face, to her eyes, that anger was as if it had never been."