"amusing late Victorian romantic intrigue"

In 1885 Chelsea, England, by accident Lord Justin Powell finds himself in a potentially compromising situation with an underage teenager. Though nothing happened, he cuts a deal with Evelyn Cummings Whyte that if she keeps silent about their unfortunate unplanned "rendezvous", he owes her a future favor. She agrees.

Ten years later, Evelyn has taken charge of her aunt's wedding planning business, but each event that she has hosted has been a catastrophe. Desperate to succeed before she runs the business into the ground, Evelyn calls in the debt by asking Justin if she can use his estate for the next matrimonial celebration. Though a nuisance, Justin agrees not because of honoring a debt, but as an opportunity to uncover enemy spies in his role as a secret agent. No doubt he would have reconsidered if he knew how much danger the woman he loves would place herself in as somehow Evelyn is in the middle of every peril.

BRIDAL FAVORS is an amusing late Victorian romantic intrigue that spoofs espionage historical intrigue tales. The story line never takes itself too seriously even as the lead couple tries to do the right thing, which seems to just place them in one precarious situation after another. Connie Brockway's novel succeeds because the audience cares what happens to Evelyn and Justin at the same time enjoying a jocular farce.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted August 13, 2002

Summary

The acclaimed, award-winning author of The Bridal Season returns to the elegant drawing rooms and sprawling country estates of Victorian England...in the captivating tale of a woman who must prove she can keep an irresistible nobleman?s most scandalous secret--without losing her heart ... Evelyn Whyte has never forgotten the night she first met Justin Powell--or the shocking indiscretion that left the raffish military hero eternally in her debt. Now, desperate to save her aunt?s foundering nuptial planning enterprise, she?s ready to call in her IOU. All she needs is Justin?s scenic ancestral home, where she?s determined to show the world that even a woman innocent in the ways of love can turn a simple wedding into the social event of the season. Ten years earlier, Evie single-handedly saved him from scandal-wagging tongues, and Justin never reneges on a favor. Now, unaware of the daring double life he conceals behind a cloak of amiable gentility, Evie and her wedding party descend on North Cross Abbey, where her curiosity and forthright manner could imperil them both. Pursued by enemy agents amid a whirl of festivities, Justin vows to keep Evie safe. But who will protect him from the charms of this alluring woman--and the promise of a matchless love worth any risk?