The Bride and the Brute

With a title like that, how could this not be a blog-worthy romance novel? The Bride and the Brute, as implied in the title, is a historical romance set at the end of the 14th century. The 14th century. Remember that.

The plot of this romance novel is fairly basic: two people are forced into marriage without consent and then fall in love. What's ridiculous about it is everything else. First, the names. Our leading lady's name is Jayce. J-A-Y-C-E. You know, that classic 14th-century name. Our hero is Reese, another anachronistically-named personage. This continues with the rest of the characters: Reese's sister is named Nicole, his brother Morse. One of his vassals is a Dylan. I don't really understand what this author was thinking with those names, but I don't think she does either. You really can't go wrong with Elizabeth and George; there's no need to make names up. The only explanation I can think of is that it was originally written as a modern-day novel that was then transposed into a historical one. Or that it's self-published. Or both.

Let's get to the plot, shall we? We begin at Jayce and Reese's wedding. She's terrified of him (fairly typical reaction to getting married in the 14th century, I imagine), and he's pissed at her. Why? It turns out he was forced into this marriage by her father, who kidnapped his sister Nicole and threatened to kill her if Reese didn't marry Jayce. Despite the fact that Jayce is the sole heiress of her father's fortune, making her husband the sole heir of her father's fortune, and the fact that she is very beautiful, he's completely not interested in marrying her. Why? He only wants to marry for love. You know, that typical 14th-century mindset.

Anyway, then Reese takes Jayce upstairs, lays her on the bed, cuts his arm, drips blood on the sheets, and takes it down to show her father that he's consummated the marriage. Which, I should point out, is a LEGAL OBLIGATION. There are consequences for not consummating. So, you know, good.

Jayce is sad and confused and alone. Then it starts thunderstorming. God, could it get any worse? As it turns out, yes. Jayce is mortally afraid of thunderstorms because her mother died during one. Ah, yes, that is how many people develop phobias, isn't it? Anyway, without her father there to comfort her, she has a breakdown, gets tangled up in the curtains, and passes out from sheer terror. Again, as often happens. Reese finds her later and puts her to bed, and he's so sweet that you just know they're going to get together. I mean, besides the fact that they're the two main characters of a romance novel so, you know, duh.

The next morning, Morse (Reese's younger brother, remember) appears and starts threatening Jayce. He accuses her of manipulating Reese into marriage by kidnapping his sister. She insists that she's innocent, trying to hint at Reese that he needs to defend her, which he persistently refuses to do. Asshole. Dylan, the cute little vassal who is apparently like, twelve, challenges Morse to a battle for Jayce's honor. Aw, how sweet. Except she freaks out because he's too little and will get pwned. So she hunts Reese down and yells at him for not defending her. He says it's her fault if Dylan dies for being involved in an evil plot, while she insists he should defend her honor himself. That's when we get the big reveal that Morse is Reese's brother, but I already told you that and ruined the surprise. Sorry.

Anyway, Reese refuses to fight, Dylan refuses to back down from a fight, and therefore Dylan is going to die. Pobre Jayce is completely torn up about this, but everything is all better when surprise!Reese appears at the battle and jousts with Morse. They both get unhorsed, and it looks like Morse is going to kill Reese, but Jayce runs between them. She agrees to all Morse's charges (even though they're totally false), and he's about to behead her when Reese jumps up and starts fighting him. Reese wins, and you'd think he and Jayce would have a moment, but instead Reese is mad at Jayce for making him fight his brother. And for everything being her fault, which he still believes. So he sends her back to her father.

Jayce is depressed and ashamed, so she hops on a horse and leaves. But then! A letter appears, informing Reese that Jayce's father has died. He immediately sends his men after her, and when she comes back she's very upset. She didn't even know her father was sick! He hid it so well!

Since this is a romance novel, Jayce gets over her father's death really quickly. Since she can't spend time bonding with Reese, and everyone else hates her (okay, except Dylan, who has a crush on her, and Nicole, who is inexplicably nice to someone whose father kidnapped her and threatened to kill her), she starts wandering around and discovers the SCARIEST HORSE OF ALL TIME. He's gigantic, mean, and generally evil. I mean, seriously, his name is SATAN, and he's about to be put down because they can't tame him. But they're both alone, so they start bonding.

Reese does not like this at all. He's convinced Satan is going to kill Jayce. She, however, insists they're besties and tells Reese he should bond with the horse too. Aw, how cute. They're bonding.

Anyway, Jayce and Reese are totally in love by now, but neither of them knows it. Just when it seems like they're going to be together forever, Morse strikes again! He shows Jayce the letter that Reese wrote (before the wedding) asking for an annulment. He leaves the parenthetical information out, of course. Jayce realizes that she and Reese will never work out and decides to leave. She runs outside, only to discover that it's thunderstorming (wow, this is a clusterfuck for poor old Jayce). She grabs Satan and rides away, without a real plan.

Reese, meanwhile, is running around the castle looking for Jayce, because he wants to sleep with her for realsies. Instead, he finds Morse, who is über proud of himself for getting rid of that stupid bitch. Reese freaks out and runs off to look for Jayce, and Nicole pops in and yells at Morse. Morse's excuse is that he had no idea Reese actually loved Jayce. Plus, there was all that stuff about her father kidnapping Nicole and threatening to kill her if Jayce and Reese didn't get married. "Oh," Nicole says, "about that..."

As it so happens, Nicole wasn't exactly kidnapped. She and Jayce's father met at a tournament, where she saw Jayce and decided she'd be a good match for Reese and Jayce's father saw Reese and decided he'd be a perfect husband for Jayce. Which is pretty important, since he now knows that he has a terminal illness and still won't be able to take care of her. So they plot out this whole thing to get the two of them together. "Reese is going to kill you," Morse tells her, but he doesn't, because this whole little plotline is completely forgotten.

Out in the thunderstorm, Jayce is having a panic attack. She parks her horse under a tree and sits on the ground sobbing because her life is so terrible and also it's thunderstorming. That's how Reese finds her. They overcome their confusion, confess their love, and have sex. Under a tree. In a thunderstorm. I mean, presumably they survive, but the novel does just kind of end there, so it's possible they died. Darwin Award for these two!

Aside from all the ridiculousness, this novel was annoying because the actual story was only 38% of the content. The rest of it, a solid 62%, was previews for the author's other books. WHAT. Seriously, who does that? It's okay if the last 10-15% is previews, because hey, you need to sell other books too, but more than half the book? Ridicule.