The Bride Takes a Groom by Lisa Berne
Series Penhallow Dynasty Series
Genre Adult Historical Romance
Publisher Avon Books
Publication Date April 24, 2018
Lisa Berne’s Penhallow Dynasty continues with a pair of star-crossed childhood friends who meet again years later—and find love where they least expect it . . .
Katherine Brooke may be a fabulously wealthy heiress, but she’s trapped, a pawn in her parents’ ruthless game to marry her into the nobility. Then Captain Hugo Penhallow—so charming, as handsome as a Greek god—comes into her life once more, and suddenly she sees a chance to be free.
As a Penhallow, his is one of the highest names in the land, but still his family is facing ruin. So Katherine boldly proposes an exchange: his name for her money. But only if Hugo understands it’s merely a practical arrangement, and that she’s not surrendering herself entirely.
Back from eight years in America and determined to give his younger siblings a better life, Hugo agrees. He’s never fallen in love, so why not? Yet neither of them guesses that this marriage will become far, far more than they ever dreamed of…
Oh, damn, her heart was hammering hard within her, as if it were a caged animal trying to burst free. To combat it, to bring herself back into coolness,
into her mind she summoned an image, a certain passage from one of her hidden history books, this one about the ancient Romans. Cornelius Tacitus had written in 97 A.D. about the Sitones, a tribe in northern Europe which was believed to be a matriarchal society. Among the Sitones, Tacitus said, the women were powerful; the women chose their mates.
It was a wild, a radical idea back then—disapprovingly had Tacitus commented upon its harmful effects—and it still was, of course, seventeen hundred years later. Even in this modern era, in which civilization had evolved with things like the printing press, steam engines, inoculations, gas lights, the Encyclopædia Britannica, and Herschel’s great telescopes, women were still supposed to demurely sit around, waiting for some man to ask her to be his wife.
But an hour ago, Hugo Penhallow had unexpectedly strolled into her parents’ drawing-room, and maybe, just maybe, they could effect a trade to their mutual benefit. It was not, to say the least, a romantic proposition, but it had been a long, long time since she had indulged in girlish dreams of love, a soulmate, happily ever after.
And here, right in front of her, was an opportunity to escape Brooke House.
So to Hugo she said, in a voice that was only a little bit breathless:
“Marry me.”
Lisa Berne read her first Georgette Heyer book at fourteen, and was instantly captivated. Later, she was a graduate student, a teacher, and a grant writer — and is now an author of historical romance, with her first three books set in Regency-era Britain. She lives with her family in the Pacific Northwest.
GIVEAWAY TERMS & CONDITIONS: Open to US shipping addresses only. Two winners will each receive a fan bundle containing the entire Penhallow Dynasty series in paperback, a charm necklace, and a signed postcard from the author. This giveaway is administered by Pure Textuality PR on behalf of Avon Romance. Giveaway ends 5/4/2018 @ 11:59pm EST. Avon Romance will send the winning copies out to the winner directly. Limit one entry per reader and mailing address. Duplicates will be deleted.
