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A Wild Night's Bride

by Victoria Vane

First, it should be said that this is a Georgian novella, and second it should be said that currently this is only in ebook form. They will be printing and releasing this along with the second book in the series later in the year. So with those two points out of the way, let me tell you about it.

Four years ago, Phoebe found her life capsized and found refuge in the theater. Now that the theater is being closed for remodeling she once again finds herself without a way to support herself. Upon the advice of a friend, she decides to find herself a protector. Ned has spent the last three years mourning his wife, and has no plans to stop now. He has only come to London to find a house to let for his daughter's come-out. What he didn't expect was to wind up at a masque with his friend DeVere and meet the only woman to turn his head since his wife's passing. Phoebe only came to the masque to be formally introduced to DeVere, but when she meets Ned she wishes he could be the man to take care of her. Since Ned is not willing, she knows she must continue on the path she has chosen.

DeVere has become bored with everything in life and wants some excitement. He proposes a wager to his friends that they can't come up with any dare that he can't accomplish. Thus the evening's real entertainment is born. DeVere must sleep with Kitty in the King of England's bed and bring the sheet back as proof.

A Wild Night's Bride is the start of a series for new author Victoria Vane. Novellas are always difficult, having to introduce two characters, their back-story and their love story, all in a way that makes the reader believe it could happen in a very short amount of time. For this book, Ms. Vane gave herself one evening for Ned and Kitty to fall in love.

I believed that Ned and Kitty felt stronger than normal feelings towards each other, but I wasn't able to believe completely in the depth of emotions they were supposed to have. I just need a little more time with the two characters alone together conversing to be able to feel that they knew each other well enough to love one another that much.

The downfall here was that because this was the beginning of a series, Ms. Vane had additional characters and storylines that she had to introduce. Unfortunately, that left her with very little time to see Ned and Kitty together. But, now that the characters are set out for us, I am looking forward to the next novella to see how she handles that romance.