“The Summer Bride” by Anne Gracie had such great reviews everywhere I looked that I instantly jumped at the chance to read it. This was a while back before it came out, when I started reading it I couldn’t really get into it. So I thought it must be the cockney accent that was turning me off. So when the chance to review it on audio came up I tried to listen to it, thinking that it would help improve my experience with the story.
I wish it had, but it didn’t.
Usually I love outcasts. They are my favorite hero’s and/or heroines. Daisy and Flynn are definite outcast. Daisy is a seamstress. She makes her living designing fashion for the tons most sophisticated and revered. This is the last book in the series, so Daisy’s character appears in the previous stories. Daisy is very outspoken and very much her own person. Flynn is not a gentleman but also makes a living and is very successful. Unlike Daisy, Flynn does want to be accepted into society and is determined to find a wife that will meet all the goals of the ton. Because him and Daisy have always been friends, apparently Daisy’s only male friend, they are very comfortable with each other.
While visiting one of his ships-not boats- as he repeatedly tells Daisy, he begins to see her in a new light and decides that he will start courting Daisy. Flynn is handsome and overall, a nice guy but Daisy is determined to be herself and not conform to any assigned roles, whether it be by society and most certainly not her husband. When Flynn proposes, Daisy refuses and they both try to grapple with finding their own happiness.
Usually I would love a story like this, but this story felt so long and drawn out and just, plain, old -boring. I didn’t love Daisy. She seeming very irritating and drama-driven. I get that the author was really breaking with convention by creating a very free thinking heroine but I did not take to her. Flynn also fell very flat for me. I wanted to shake some sense into him and yell at him to get a backbone. Like I mentioned, Gracie’s books all have fantastic reviews and I’m sure her fans will love this story but for me, I was happy when it was over.
Alison Larkin is a great narrator. She really seems to understand her characters and knows how to make each one stand out as their own person.
**Audiobook Provided by Publisher**
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