"Delightful"

At the London train station, Henri Arnoux asks Lady Agatha Whyte to marry him. She agrees dropping her train ticket on the floor of the station. Watching the romantic drama play out is music hall performer Letty Potts, who picks up the ticket destination Little Bidewell. She is desperate to escape her boyfriend Nick, who has insured she remains unemployed and burns down the lodging house she calls home destroying all of her possessions. Nick simply plans to force Letty to crawl back on her hands and knees to him, but she takes the train instead.

Letty arrives at Little Bidewell pretending to be Agatha of Whyte's Wedding Celebrations. Everyone welcomes the newcomer except local war hero Sir Elliot March. He suspects Letty is hiding something, but perhaps this is a reaction formation on his part to evade his own unwanted passion for the visitor. Soon his suspicions will prove true as London catches up with her, but by then Letty and Elliot love each other.

Readers will skip past the opening gimmick that enables Letty to escape because THE BRIDAL SEASON is a vivid historical romance that depicts life in an English country village near the end of the nineteenth century. The story line moves the reader because of how much the locals care about one another and the newcomer. The romance between Elliot and Letty is filled with guilt, recriminations, demons, and a deep love. Fans of Connie Brockway will thoroughly appreciate this gregarious look at a bygone era mostly through the eyes of a charming, caring, and compassionate charlatan.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted October 17, 2001

Summary

Letty Potts has gotten into a few fixes in her twenty-five years, but this is her worse predicament yet. A petty schemer by necessity, the struggling music hall performer has decided to go straight. But after narrowly escaping the wrath of her partner in crime, she finds herself at Paddington Station with nothing but the gown she's wearing...and another woman's train ticket clutched in her hand. Now masquerading as the redoubtable "Lady Agatha" of Whyte Wedding Celebrations, Letty arrives in the backwater burg of Little Bidewell, where she is to arrange the nuptials of a young society bride.

Amid the dizzying whirl of pre-wedding festivities, nobody suspects Letty's secret ... except the sensual and aristocratic Sir Elliot March. A war hero who has forsworn love, Elliot senses something decidedly amiss about this outspoken young woman. Yet she awakens a passionate yearning he'd thought was lost to him forever. And soon a desperate masquerade embroils them both in a web of scandal and danger as Letty's past catches up with her -- threatening their lives ... and a love without peer.