Rule's Bride features an arranged marriage between an American heiress and a British lord. As far as historical romances go, this was just a mediocre read for me. I didn't hate it; I didn't love it. The plot was okay - the main characters are trying to sell a gun company amidst murder charges. The hero and heroine are what really disappointed me: they were boring. I didn't feel any sort of empathy for them because they didn't have a whole lot of personality or emotion. The romance fell flat for me because the main characters fell flat. Overall the book was a bit blah - and it's definitely not going on my keeper shelf. ( )

Rule's Bride has the youngest Dewar Brother marrying an american girl named Violet. Her father had arrainged the marriage before he died. When Violet comes of age she wants out of the marriage. Rule is accused of murder. The murder is not the one I would have guessed but he was on my list of suspects. It was an ok book but the ending was a little weak and it wasn't as good as the others. ( )

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, as part of the Early Reviewers program on the LibraryThing web site. Based on the blurb I was excited to read 'Rule's Bride'. I was immediately sucked in right from the first page, but then about half way through the book the characters sort of fell flat for me. I just wasn't feeling the connection or the heat between them. I generally dislike it when a heroine sleeps with the hero, then gets pissy & confrontational, as if she hadn't been a willing participant. The heroine here, Violet, does exactly that -- and that's when I started to dislike her and lost interest in her happiness. The overall plot of the book was tight and interesting, and I enjoyed the secondary characters as well. It was a little predictable, but overall it was a pretty good book. I really like Kat Martin's writing style, and I'll definitely check out more of her books. ( )

Let me preface by saying I've haven't read the first two books of this series or anything else by Kat Martin. Perhaps if I had, I would have liked this book more, though I doubt it.

First and foremost, I did not like Rule. He started off as a self-centered jerk wad just out to get laid. As the story progressed, he turned into a moronic jerk wad just out to get laid that needed to grow up more than just a little. Every time he possibly redeemed himself, he then went and proved himself to be, yet again, self-centered, moronic, or both.

By comparison, Violet seems like a very likable and sensible character. But she up and decides she's in love with Rule because he looks good and has moment of quasi-heroism. My estimation of her continued to decline each time her common sense was warped by hormones.

So, basically, these two deserve each other given how idiotic they both are. Their relationship, which seems to consist of sex and jealousy, hits an impasse, then they go whining about to someone else, said confidant tells them what to do, they go back to their shallow relationship, rinse and repeat. This is really a cautionary tale about two strangers jumping into a relationship together -- very vapid and aggravating. Plus the whole resolution to Rule's supposedly inability to love, and all because he didn't have a mommy . . . give me break. I don't want to toss out a spoiler, in case someone actually wants to read the book, or else I'd really rant about the ending.

Most everything else about the book wasn't enough to get me past the above gripes. Lots of -- too many -- minor characters that I didn't care about, which turned into so much clutter. A suspenseful plot that I couldn't pay attention to, annoyed as I was by the characters. In short, nothing much to recommend this.

But! I did enjoy Caroline and Luke's side story quite a bit. Oh, how I wish the author had chucked Rule and Violet entirely and just written a book about Caroline and Luke. There was a true romance, there were well-rounded characters. I eventually gave up on Rule and mostly read their story. What a waste of potential. ( )

Not quite as good as Reese's Bride - here his motivations were reasonably obvious, but he crossed a few lines by modern standards (and I never got the feeling that any of them were thinking in period terms, they were modern characters in fancy dress) - like something close to date rape. She was his wife - more or less - but he still took advantage of her. On the other hand, her agreeing to stay with him in the first place, if she didn't want to be his wife in full, was just plain stupid. I knew there was something wrong with Jeffrey early on - if he was as depicted, Rule would have been too black for a romance hero. The actual matter surprised me, though - nicely done. And he more or less redeems himself at the end. Newgate was interesting, Morgan and the Oarsmen show up of course - in this story, I liked the setting but again the plot got to be too unlikely for me. Not terrible but not a favorite. And next I get to read the first one in the trilogy... ( )