The Weaver Takes a Wife

read this book on the recommendation in the forward by Mary Balogh, who is one of my favorite authors. This is not a typical historical romance in as it is not about two protagonists from the same social enviornment. The hero is a working class man who grew up in a workhouse and eventually was sold to a mill owner. When the story opens he now owns the mill and is a very rich man. He is not handsome or refined and his taste in clothes is awful. He even speaks with a low born accent. He sees the heroine at the theater and falls instantly in love. The heroine's father is a duke who is financial straits and when the hero offers the duke $75,000 pounds for his daughers hand in marriage the duke accepts. The heroine cannot believe her father is making her marry the low born miller. She is haughty and snobbish to her new husband and wants nothing to do with him. As the story progresses she sees that her husband is not what he seems. She learns to look at the character of a person and not just their looks and origins. Her husband is compassionate and kind. There is great lessons in this book like "Don't judge a book by it's Cover" . A lesson for all of us. This book is beautifully written and I would recommend it to everyone who loves sweet historical romance.

This book was a quick, fun read. Because it was so short there is not a lot of character development or wordy descriptions of people or places, but I found that the book really did not need them. It was just a light, entertaining read about two people meeting and falling in love. In this case Ethan falls in love as soon as he sees Helen, Helen on the other hand takes some time to realize what a good man Ethan Brundy is.

What I enjoyed the most about this story was how the author took her time with the two main characters and had Helen slowly warm to Ethan and his different ways. I also liked how Ethan really didn't have to change to make Helen fall in love with him, Helen just needed to get past her own prejudices to see Ethan for the good man he was.

If you enjoy regency romances I think you will enjoy this one. It is a cute little book that I know I really enjoyed reading.

This thoroughly charming Regency Romance, originally published in 1999 and now re-issued in digital formats, features a type of hero rarely found in historical romance. Mr Ethan Brundy isn’t titled, he isn’t a gentleman or a snappy dresser and while not unattractive, is no well-muscled Adonis. The one thing he does have in common with many an aristocratic hero, however, is that he’s incredibly wealthy.
The owner of a cotton mill and various other businesses in the north of England, Ethan is on a rare visit to London in the company of a couple of friends, when he espies the most beautiful woman he has ever seen and immediately determines to marry her.
His friends try to warn him off. Lady Helen Radney, daughter of the Duke of Reddington might be beautiful, but she is widely known for her shrewish disposition and her ability to wound an unwanted suitor at twenty paces with her sharp tongue.
But Ethan is well and truly smitten, and won’t be deterred. He discovers that the duke’s finances are in dire straits, and offers to pay him a large sum of money in exchange for Helen’s hand in marriage. Unsurprisingly, the lady herself is appalled – by Ethan’s working-class accent, his ill-fitting clothes and most of all, his lowly origins - and makes it abundantly clear that while she has no alternative but to obey her father’s instruction and marry him, she dislikes him intensely and has no intention of being an affectionate spouse.
The story follows a predictable course, it’s true, but what makes The Weaver Takes a Wife so enjoyable is the characterisation, the way the author develops the central relationship and most of all, Ethan himself, who is a truly captivating hero.
Ethan is a self-made man, a workhouse boy who, having shown an aptitude for the work to which he was assigned, was subsequently adopted by his employer who had no son of his own. Ethan learned the business, took the man’s last name – having none of his own – and eventually inherited his ‘father’s’ mills and other businesses. He refuses to be cowed by the haughty disdain of the members of the ton and one of the most attractive things about him is that he is a man who knows who he is and is comfortable in his own skin.
Helen is proud and cold, and has no intention of being anything else toward her husband, but can’t help being surprised by his kindness and generosity. Still, the idea of her coming to feel anything for her husband looks unlikely at best. When, on their wedding day, her bridegroom tells her that it would please him were she to call him Ethan, she replies –
”I wonder, Mr Brundy what makes you think pleasing you must be an object with me?”
- and takes every opportunity she can to slight him. Her progress from scornful bride to loving wife is accomplished beautifully as she comes to see what the reader has seen from the outset – that her husband is a true diamond in the rough – and that she (like the reader) wouldn’t want him any other way.
The Weaver Takes a Wife is a delight from start to finish; a real feel-good, pick-me-up read and one I’m sure I’ll be revisiting in future.

All reviews appear on Amazon, Goodreads, LibraryThing plus LT Facebook and Twitter, eyes.2c review blog

Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Weaver-Takes-Wife-Sheri-South-ebook/dp/B004NEVLSO/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top (Mar 22, 2014)

LibaryThing and LibraryThing Facebook and Twitter http://www.librarything.com/work/312467/107597956 (Mar 22, 2014)

Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/888589565 (Mar ,22 2014)

eyes.2c reviews blog http://eyes2creviews.blogspot.ca/2014/03/charming.html (Mar 22, 2014)

Charming!

What can you do when cupid's arrow strikes and leaves you dazzled by a veritable princess (well in this case a daughter of a Duke)...and you a self made man of 'Trade', a 'cit?'
Well if your determined like Mr Ethan Bundy you forge ahead despite all. After all a cat can look at a Queen. The love story of Lady Helen Radney and Ethan is absolutely delightful, leavened throughout with a wry humour.
'elen' as Bundy calls his wife Helen is a wilful shrew who finds her way to love.
Ethan Bundy, a man of strong inner character and wonderful gentleness, is the mill owner who dares to love above his station. A man without subterfuge, honest and worthy. A man whose strengths slowly dawn on his wife. A man who as Helen says, 'took Almack's by storm.'
In this case of pursuing true love it's fortunate that the lady in question's father, the Duke of Reddington, is an inveterate gambler and just shy of being hauled up River Tick, as they say. And that Ethan is just the man to assist the Duke with his monetary embarrassment .
Of course there's the blaggard Lord Waverley who tries to twist the situation between Helen and Ethan to his own advantage, not to mention the charming scrape grace of a brother whose antics heighten the situation and lead Helen down a path she's reluctant to go.
As a story of love pursued, love rejected and love found, this rendition is thoroughly enjoyable and ageless. A celebratory 15 year anniversary reprint with a lively forward by Mary Balogh it is indeed a treat. I for one am grateful that this republication has brought the book to the fore for a fresh batch of readers like myself to enjoy. I smiled the whole reading through!

A NetGalley ARC