Review: eARC What the Bride Wore by Jade Lee

What the Bride Wore (Bridal Favors #3)

Jade Lee

Blurb:

Grant Benton, Earl of Crowle finally has the funds he always pretended to have and what he wants now is a woman. That woman is Lady Irene Knopp, who spends her days helping debutantes plan their weddings. A recent widow, Irene longs for love again, but she’s afraid to risk her heart, especially to the notorious Grant Benton.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Review:

I have to say I’ve been waiting to read Grant’s book ever since I’ve read his younger brother’s, Will’s novella, Winning a Bride.

That book was great and I couldn’t wait to read Grant’s. So here we are with Grant’s and well, it was okay.

In Winning a Bride we got to see Will’s point of view of how he saw his older brother Grant and it wasn’t a great view of him. He was portrayed as a lazy, no good rouge, who was just like their father and grandfather throwing and wasting their money away on women and gambling halls.

Even though I saw that side of Grant through Will’s eyes I didn’t dislike him but felt bad and knew something was up with Grant’s disappearance.

Onto the book.

We first see Grant before he left Yorkshire that one fateful day on his sister’s wedding day. And of course on the very same day he burned down their barn and got cut from his brother Will (we learned about this a bit in Will’s novella).

I new from that very first moment that I would love and adore Grant. He touched my heart and I pained for him dearly. His  dear sister had to marry herself off to help the family with their father’s spending. And Will damned himself for being unable to prevent his sister from marrying a man old enough to be their father. After the wedding Will decided to try to get some quick cash to pay off the debts but instead burned down the barn.

I felt so bad for him and knew that he was just trying his best to protect and afford for his family. But when Will came and started putting Grant down I really wanted to smack the back of Will’s head and put him straight! Didn’t he know that Grant was trying be a good brother and help the family as best he could!? Gosh I was so angry with Will!

But anyways, When we next saw Grant, five years has past and he was ready to buy their family land back from the Lawtons (whom we met in Will’s novella). Sadly it didn’t happen.

Grant had become a mill owner (against his best wishes) and had saved as  much and more so he can to buy back the land and it had come to naught. The land had become valuable due to the repairs and canal Will had added to the land, so now the land exceeded what Grant hoped to have paid. But he did meet the widowed Mrs. Irene Knopp who he sold his valuable cloths to from his mill to buy back his land.

After failing to buy the land back he lost hope but then tried to find a way to wed Lawton’s daughter, whom the land was placed into her dowry. He then found out that she was to be marry. And to no other than his Brother!

I know! I was still sock even though I read Will’s novella already and knew they were to wed but still. It really pained me seeing Grant find out that way and that the land he worked so hard for was to be given to his brother. But at least it was back into Crowle’s hands, right?

And so Grant let if off, for a bit. And so there was Irene. Grant decided he had to keep his gentleman background, title, and past a secret from her if he wanted to be in her company.

Irene has secrets of her own. She’s a Lady, daughter of a gentleman who has also lost coins due to gambling. But now she’s a widow of a sailor working at her friend’s modist shop as a purchaser of fabrics and the likes. She loves her job but fears that if people found out she is the daughter of a gentleman gambler she would bring the shop down.  But meeting Grant brought on a whole new world and disordered her life and emotions. He’s so different and she doesn’t know what to think or do when she is pulled into his life.

I really liked Irene when I met her. She was strong, smart, and knew what she was talking about and still looked good and kept a man on his toes to what will come out next from her mouth and from her mind. But no, it didn’t stay that way.

As the story progressed she started to fall out of it and became vulnerable. I guess that’s her true image and I thought it was nice seeing that side of her but I didn’t quite like or enjoyed it. It worked well with how the story was going even if I wanted her to still be that strong woman from the beginning but she just kept on becoming a lady I didn’t like. Her thoughts weren’t what I expected from her, especially her thoughts of Grant. She couldn’t make up her mind if she wanted to be with him but she wanted to keep on sleeping with him. And yet she didn’t want to have the name of being his mistress! I rolled my eyes~

And then there were those times where she would push him away for dumb reasons and her thoughts weren’t nice about him and I just wanted to slap her. Gosh Grant deserved better.

The relationship between Grant and Irene was nice but it felt…..I don’t know! Long and short at the same time. Or slow? All the problems were just Irene’s fault. She couldn’t make up her mind when Grant had already made up his, which I really liked. He knew what he wanted and was patient enough to wait for Irene to realize it. If she were to go with her heart the first time and stop having thoughts and fears, I would have been finish with the book sooner and the book would have been shorter.

I really thought her clueless when he told her a secret of his and she placed it on a pedestal as a fault (in her mind) and feared that it will passed along to their children (if that ever happened!). She used that as stepping stone to decide if she wanted to be with him. Yeah! How low does she think of him to use that against him and marriage!

Anyways I lost interest in the story sadly. I really wanted the story to stay focus on Grant and his progress in the mill and around his family but sadly it didn’t stay that way. It moved to a mystery story around a murder plot.

Though it did work for a time and brought Grant’s brother and his past into the story, after that it just went blah for me.

I kind of saw it useless afterwards; after he mended his relationship with his brother and told them of his past five years and the mill, there was just nothing after that. And what happen to the mill? Did Grant go back to it and started working again or did he just leave it to his men and lived the life he can have once again? So frustrated….

I love you Jade but, you lost the story for me when it changed into a mystery plot. I hope I’m not too harsh but I just wanted to be honest with my review.

This eARC was provided by the publisher via Netgallery.