Till Next We Meet
Young widow of Scottish soldier spent the last 6 months, since being informed of her husband's death, grieving her husband's demise, re-reading his letters to her, & sleeping. Unbeknown to her, it's the colonel of her husband's troop who's been writing her husband's poetic love letters to her since her husband's too uncaring & busy womanizing & gambling. When hero finally meets heroine, he is shocked at how weak she looks & when her maids can't wake her up that same evening hero tends to her, thinking she's been drugged. Their compromising position pushes him to marry her that same night. When heroine wakes up, she's stunned to be married to a stranger. Her reluctance to let go of her deceased husband whom she fell in love with through their letter correspondence & hero's letter-writing secret cause big impediments to their marriage but hero's deep love for her gives him the patience to wait for her to love him.I'm a big Ranney fan b/c of her emotionally-pulling, sensual, & tightly-written books. But this one didn't measure up to Ranney's usual standards. I found this book a challenge to read. The pacing was inconsistent & writing was sometimes awkward. I wanted to edit the book & shift some paragraphs to more appropriate parts of the book to make it flow better. These took away from the emotional impact of the book. I also didn't like that at least half of the book was spent on heroine grieving her deceased husband. It made me want to shake heroine up & yell for hero to tell her his big secret already! The book's pacing & the romance got better in the last 1/3 of the book, when heroine FINALLY woke up from her grief stupor. Sexual chemistry was lacking in the 1st half & got better later. Love scenes went it finally occurred were good.
Cautiously recommended. Will trudge along the 1st half but it gets better later.
