Mail Order Brides of the West (2) - This Bride's New Year by Claire Dawson
And to the second part of the series, This Bride's New Year (not translated). I read it in English. Originally published 2015.
Jeanetta has lost everything. The fire took her parents, took her home, took her innocence, took part of her beauty and part of her sanity. Every night she wakes up screaming. The only thing that could help her is to trust someone else entirely. Which is hard to do, if you don't have relatives or even a good friend. Her only possible hope is to be a Mail Order Bride – but her chosen husband doesn't even want to consider marriage. And that's not her worst problem: Her parents' murderer followed her...
Well. Poor Jeanetta. I liked the first part better. And it's a shame Anna's development was cut out. It would have been nice to see both her and her husband and her and Jeanetta grow closer – they have a lot in common and would be good friends.
William's development was nice. Not well executed, but nice. Here as well, there's a lack of the subtleties that make a good and credible development. Okay, to fall in love does change a character, puts out his real self. That itself was well done. The falling in love part? Not so much.
Spoiler:
They would have to have much more time together! Some real conversations. And he fought so hard against her. He wouldn't have simply given in to his feelings like he did, especially not before the nearly-murder. It would have been better if the two of them didn't have anything really romantic until she was nearly killed. And that he then saw how brave she was and that he doesn't want to loose her (blah blah, vomit in the next plotted plant) because of that and only that, admit his feelings and ask her to marry him.
Apropos nearly-murder: That scene so didn't make any sense. First of all, if you slap someone who has a gun in his hand, he pulls the trigger. It's not even a conscious decision, it's a reflex. And this person is such a cruel control-it-all, he would have pulled the trigger just because he didn't like the attitude. That he didn't isn't credible. Second, why didn't he say “come with me while I flee”? He followed her – that must have had a reason. A perverse love or a revenge-thing. AND in this situation, he'd need some leverage that makes William stay behind, to make the flight possible. Third, were did the armed people came? Did they... I don't know, teleport? They couldn't have been so stealthy neither Anna nor the murderer heard or saw them!
Let me repeat myself: Don't be afraid of using pages!!!!! The time between the nearly-murder and the marriage: What happened there? Describe a little courting, how the town reacted to the crime and that marriage – hopefully more generous than towards Anna – and how they react to Jeanetta herself. Is she accepted or feared, because she brought a murderer to their little town? Has Jeannetta friends? And what happens with Anna? Do they solve their differences?
So. In the end, this book was not very well done. But there were no historic mistakes.
In brief:
Okay. I give a star for the ideas and the style, minus one for the missing development and minus one for characters. Sorry again.
Prequel: