Description: A Cross-Country Trip through Regency England Brings Intrigue, Rogues, and High Adventure
The must-read conclusion to Michelle Griep’s Bow Street Runners Trilogy: Life couldn’t be better for Abigail Gilbert—but it’s been a long time in coming. Having lived with a family who hated her, it’s finally her time for love. Abby sets off on a journey across England to marry one of the most prestigious gentlemen in the land—until highwaymen upset her plans and threaten her life.
Horse patrol captain Daniel Thatcher arrives just in time to save Abby. But she’s simply another victim in a job he’s come to despise. Tired of the dark side of humanity, he intends to buy land and retire.
Abby pleads with him to escort her for the rest of her journey. He refuses—until she offers him something he desperately needs to achieve his goal. . .money. Delivering her safely will give him more than enough to buy property.
So begins an impossible trek for the cynical lawman and the proper lady. Each will be indelibly changed by the time they reach her betrothed, if they don’t kill one another first—or fall in love.
My Thoughts: I've not read a lot of Griep's work, only one other book. But I had found that I had enjoyed that one, so I thought to give this a try. However I do not think that this book lived up to her other one. Despite the character's stating where and when it is that they live, I could not help but picture this story as taking place in Western America, a good hundred years later. This is because the details which which should have set up the location were rarely described.
As for the characters, Abby herself is a woman of strength and confidence, neither of which are traits that seemed to fit with her background of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her family. For someone who has been told her whole life that she is unloved and unwanted, she has no problem believing that Sir Jonathan would fall in love with her after one dance. Even thoughts of her family's absolute abandonment of her just before she is to leave only mildly saddens her.
On the other side of the spectrum is Samuel, who sees nothing but the ugliest side of the world after he have survived a drunken and abusive father, war, and life as a lawman. And while his outlook on life is justified, he is unable to recognize the abuse and neglect Abby suffered even after he learns some of her family's treatment of her. And both characters leave behind a woman and her son whom they know are being abused and neglected. Samuel's only aid offered to them is to give the boy a couple of coins to live off of once his mother passes because of disease and malnourishment.
The only true bright spot I could find in the story was Emma. The child and her antics are adorable as is the relationship between her and the two adults. However, that does not make up for the rest of the characters in the story. Characters who willfully allow others to walk into danger because they can't be bothered to warn them, as well as supposedly kind characters who caste scathing judgement on people they have just met. There are other issues I had with the story, such as unnecessary coincidences and a villain who wastes time with threatening messages when he doesn't need to.
I have provided an honest review after having received an ecopy through Netgalley.
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