All Lady Alice wants is to be happy. So why has her quest become dogged by a trail of tears? A three time loser at love and with her reputation in tatters, this bad luck bride has accepted a life of loneliness. Until a long lost acquaintance has her questioning that possibility. The Bad Luck Bride is a tale of promises broken and new hopes arising. The saying "wrapped in feelings" fits perfectly for Alice and Henderson. Ms. Goodger grabs onto the heart and never seeks to let go. Attention grabbing, emotionally satisfying and hauntingly beautiful. ( )

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.

The story opens with Alice being jilted at the altar by her fiance Lord Northrup. This is her third failed engagement; her first fiance died in the church as she was walking down the aisle and the second was revealed as a conman the week before the wedding. Alice is nicknamed the "bad luck bride" and retreats to her family home in St Ives. Alice was not in love with any of her fiances, because she has only ever loved Henderson. Henderson, a friend of her older brother Joseph, has returned from India to try to drum up support for famine relief there. Four year ago Joseph died and Henderson left for India and there has been no contact in the intervening years.

The story opens strongly with the jilting, but the first third of the novel is then devoted to filling in backstory in a mildly repetitive way. What little present day plot there is consists of one quarter Henderson failing to gain any famine relief support and three quarters Henderson deciding he is going to marry Alice, but then losing his nerve/changing his mind and generally dithering.

Then Lord Northrup returns to explain himself and the plot picks up again briefly, although his utterly preposterous explanation is accepted without a murmur. SPOILERS Then there is more dithering with Alice considering marrying Northrup after all, while simultaneously making out with Henderson, as suddenly her parents consider Lord Berkley (an excellent character) as an alternative suitor for her. Out of the blue, Alice's parents no longer regard Henderson as a son to them; instead they despise him for his illegitimacy and have only ever tolerated him. Rather, they would like their daughter to marry a man widely believed to have murdered his first wife (he didn't). This whole section struck me as extremely unromantic.

Finally Henderson uncovers a serial murderer (yes, really) and, once he turns out to be extremely rich (so why doesn't he use his own money for Indian famine relief?), Alice's parents discover that they would love him for a son-in-law after all. It all got a bit much. ( )