Bridal Favors by Connie Brockway

Finally. I was beginning to think I would never finish another book again. All it takes is plunking the butt in the chair and ignoring things like laundry, dinner, the husband and the insistent barking of dogs.

This is normally quite easy when I am knee deep in a book but this one never grabbed me.

So, I've decided the book is a C because every time I went to pick it up I couldn't remember what the story was about and in the end, meh.

Cindy Blurb: At the age of 15, Evie meets Justin in the middle of the night leaving a married woman's room while she is heading to the kitchen for a drink. It is her sister's coming out party and she is now upset that Justin might try for her. Justin assures her he will keep his distance and that she must forget she ever saw him coming from the married woman's room and in return he will be in her debt. She decides that Justin is really no harm to anyone because he is a bit of a buffoon.

Ten years later Evie cashes in and Justin lends her his country estate so that she can host a wedding for her Aunt's business that has fallen into her lap. Not important. Justin insists he needs to be on the property because he is a birder, Evie insists he keep his hands off the women (which confuses Justin) and they spend a month in each other's company. Oh and he is a master spy. If this is an example of an English spy from this era I weep for the British.

What's good about this book. Well, it's charming in a young girl's fantasy kind of way. Not so much in a grown ass woman's kind of way and well, I'm all growed up. So if you want to read a fairytale-ish romance without a lot of smarts then have at it. I'm surprised that this book is lauded as one of Brockway's best.

Problems? You betcha.

Evie was a heroine I actually liked. She was hard working, strong in her emotions and not afraid of much. Her aunt had run off to get married and left her wedding planning business without a care. Evie, who prides herself in making herself responsible for all things took the reigns and managed to make quite a mess. He last hope is to pull off one stellar wedding and her client wants her reception at one of Justin's ancestral homes. Evie has some serious self-esteem issues but then she is twenty five in a time when a woman's youth was valuable (hmmm, like today much?) and she considers herself unattractive so she makes herself invaluable to her family by being level headed and in control. I can actually understand her.

Justin, however, got the raw end of the stick because he came across as not only silly but also less than bright in the intelligence (and I mean spy) way. The more I think about it the reader never actually knows who Justin is. Is he the 'hail fellow well met' man or is he ever serious? I mean, it is suggested that as a spy he must have a serious side but I never really saw it. You caught glimpses of it through Evie but it came down to never really knowing how the real Justin would be in a family situation.

The worst was at one point Justin is musing to himself that master spies are in the intelligence gathering game and aren't in the business of killing each other.

I thought about putting the book down at this point. I also lost all respect for Justin as any sort of spy at all. He's been a spy for more than ten years and hasn't really found himself in a dangerous situation. I say he wasn't a 'master' spy at all. If Evie hadn't actually found a spy I would have suggested that Justin was delusional.

Okay, if I write anymore I might end up sandbagging the hero of this book so I will leave off here. Obviously this book was supposed to be a lark and maybe, I just wasn't in the mood for a lark.

But then again, I don't think spies live a life of carefree abandon.

Now, I'm scared to pick up another book. What if it is too frothy like this one? I need something dark and now that it's April, maybe I should do some re-reading. At this moment, however, I'm going to go veg in front of the TV.