Pearl's World of Romance - Reviews with a Passion: The Abduction of Julia

May 21, 2007

The Abduction of Julia - Karen Hawkins

5:01 PM |

Alec MacLean, a branded rakehell who scorns the ton for its snobbery and insincere ways, is in a damnable predicament. Having promised his dying grandfather to save the family fortune, Alec finds himself eloping with an avariciously accommodating society miss.

But when Alec open the door of his coach, he finds the wrong woman -- prim do-gooder Julia Frant! Desperate, Alec strikes a bargain with the reformer; marry him that night and Julia can use part of his fortune for her charitable works. Julia agrees and takes on her biggest project ever -- reforming the wild-living rake who'd unknowingly won her heart long ago!

It took me a while, several chapters to be honest, to get into this book and I can’t quite pin-point why that was. The story was defenitely nice but still it didn’t grip me as some other books recently have done.
I was really at the verge of putting it down and picking another book to read and that would have been a first because I’ve never done that.. I always finish what I start!
But luckily I hung on and from chapter 6-7 I really got pulled into the story...
Maybe because the story really began to take form whereas it didn’t before.
Maybe because the interactions between hero and heroin began to sparkle and the witty dialogues started to kick in.
Maybe because the interesting secondary characters (Nick, Maddie, Edmund, Lucien) began to drop in now and then.

I find “The Abduction of Julia” a pleasurable, uncomplicated story with nice dialogues. I liked both hero and heroin, especially Julia because she’s so independent and determined to save the less fortunate ones in her world. She’s a heroin who’s very easy to sympathize with.
Alec is the dime-in-a-dozen Regency-rake, but nonetheless also a very aimable character in the book.

It's not a really good sign if (one of) the main characters are outranked by secondary characters and for me that was the case in this book.
In my book Alec was positively outranked by Nick Montrose, Earl of Bridgerton and his sinfully wicked cousin trying to trick the heritage right from under Alec. He’s the bad guy in this book but a bad guy you also admire and empathize with. So I’m very glad he has his own book: the third and last in this trilogy.
Can’t wait to get to that one because I really want to read what kind of hero he’ll be.

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