The Scandalous Adventures of the Sister of the Bride
by Victoria Alexander
Lol. This one is my favorite. The adult content, I do warn, is more integrated through-out with the one explicit chapter (same as all the books in this series) but the scene includes important conversational pieces. There's no escaping the "adult", but I managed to bleep away details and laughed my delightful way through this book. The title links to the Goodreads premise, if you're interested.
Obviously the title has gotten deliciously long. Hilarious.
Delilah is my favorite relative from Millworth Manor. She is so spunky, so full of attitude, I enjoyed her. She is so resistant to the idea of the American Samuel Russell, too. It's one of those romances where she falls into it so thoroughly but denies every step, every look, every thought until she is completely contradicting herself from one end of a sentence to the other.
The story starts with a rather scandalous affair in America. Delilah has accompanied her older sister, Camille, as a proper escort as Camille visits her betrothed's (Grayson) connections and business associates. This is after that crazy Christmas in the first book and kind of during the second book.
As a proper escort, Delilah should NOT be having an affair with an unknown American. Who, as it turns out, is not really as unknown as she thought, but rather quite a business man and Grayson's best friend, Samuel Russell. But they don't know that until he shows up in England for the wedding and the two bump into each other unexpectedly. It is especially hilarious since the affair was so memorable, but so completely impossible for either of them to pursue... so being thrown together all of a sudden, both of them staying at Millworth Manor (of course) is loaded with shocking, unexpected and laugh-out-loud moments.Samuel is just the right amount of persistent and stubborn to match Delilah very well with plenty of creative scheming of his own.
Delilah is widowed, naturally, so romantic interludes are acceptable in the society. The sneaking around in the middle of the night is absolutely hilarious. It's an entirely different perspective of proper English 1800's behavior.
The wit and charm and dialogue make this my favorite book, but there is enough adult romance to keep me from re-reading it much. I'll give it 4.8 stars. Lol.
