Rating: 
Summary: ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL!!!
Review: A must read for any romance fan. I could not put it down! Ms. Beverley is up to her superb standard of writing again. Can't wait for the next book!
Rating: 
Summary: Bittersweet
Review: After reading the back description of this book, I immediately liked it and bought it regardless of the unknown author to me. I got even more excited when I read the 5 stars ratings here in Amazon. The housekeeper vs a Gentleman initial plot intrigue me, not to mention their childhood friendship and their romance. That was enough to encourage me to start reading. The first part and the middle part of the book was luring, sharp and fast moving. I liked Susan, she is more human than a fantasy book heroine. She makes mistakes, she makes wrong choices but accepts her faults and LEARNS from it. I enjoyed reading the detailed thoughts of Susan & Con. Ms. Jo Beverly picks her words very well. My heart tightens in reading Con's resentment and Susan's regrets. Con's sharp remarks and hurtful rebukes makes me ache for Susan just as much as for Con. Their Romance and love for each other is simply bittersweet. They both try hard to forget the past and to move on as friends. They try to deny the feelings that is still burning deep inside... but it just can't be done. It makes you ache for them & with them. The smuggling operation as well as the Wyvern's wierd description was an excellent spice to the story... However, towards the end of the book, I am sad to say that the story drags on and then ends abruptly. I expected more towards the end. I expected more action twist. I think Gifford gave up too easily. I also wanted to read more hearty situations where Susan can prove herself to Con. I wanted to read more circumstances for Con to be able to rebuilt his trust back towards Susan. There is no question about their love for each other but Con and Susan are also often times avoiding each other that I was unconvince towards the end. I would have love to read more of them together. Togetherness to improve their relationship... to rebuilt... to develop a newer, stronger bond. That would have been a good way to erase any doubts and forget the hurtful past. This book also contains a lot of secondary characters, all are interesting but I think I will appreciate the secondary characters much better if I have read Jo Beverley's previous books that is in the ROGUE & the GEORGE SERIES. The Rogue Series goes: AN ARRANGE MARRIAGE.....AN UNWILLING BRIDE.....CHRISTMAS ANGEL......FORBIDDEN.....DANGEROUS JOY. The George Series goes: THE DEMON'S MISTRESS (Novella:In Praises for Younger Men).....THE DRAGON'S BRIDE.....DEVIL's HEIRESS (Aug., 2001). Hope that helps! This is my first book of Ms. Jo Beverly and I can't say I am very impressed by her work but then I am not thoroughly disappointed either. Perhaps I will give her another try by reading the next book of this GEORGE series, THE DEVIL's HEIRESS. It would be nice to read updates of Susan and Con anyway. Despite my "unconvinced" complaint, I still rated this book a 4 stars because it was afterall an entertaining read.
Rating: 
Summary: Not one of her best, but still better than most.
Review: All of Jo Beverley's books I have read so far distinguish themselves from the rest for their originallity and the quality of their writting. This is not an exception, that's why I'm giving this book 3 stars. I would give it 3 1/2 stars if it was possible, but I don't think it deserves 4 stars. Beverley is really a talented writer, but in my opinion this is not one of her best efforts.
The first half was really good, it was full of deep feelings, regrets, suppressed love and sexual tension. Those are always ingredients that make me enjoy a romance novel. But afterward I could not understand the reasons that kept them appart (his half commitment to Lady Anne, who is not even in love with him) To think that they would have actually forsake their love just to avoid her some dissapointment really annoyed me, because it would have been unfair to all the parts involved, including Lady Anne, who deserves better than a husband who is in love with another woman. It also denies the deep love and need that up until then I believed they felt for each other, because if that were the case, how could they calmly resign themselves to part and walk away from each other? This was the first flaw I found in the book.
The other one was that the only love scene between them (although passionate) is marred by lies and misunderstandings. The book really needed at least another love scene, one that would not have come about after he treated her like a whore and she permitted it, instead of being properly offended and hurt and setting him straight.
I would have preferred the first time they made love after so many years apart, to be more tender, more spiritual, like the coming together of two parts of a whole, the reunion of soulmates. Because that's what they are. There was nothing really wrong with the love scene, just with the events that led up to it.
And one more thing, although this is only my personnal preference, Jo Beverley seems to think that the ability to kill (and actually having done it) makes her heroes more desirable. I'm really not crazy about soldiers, or ex-soldiers or men that kill as if it was not a big deal. That was one of my few complaints about "My Lady Notorious" (Cyn Malloren story) and "Devilish" (his brother, the Marquess of Rothgar story)from the Malloren series.
But except for the above mentioned issues, the book is still quite good. Just not up to the high standards I expect from Jo Beverley after reading the Malloren series.
Rating:
Summary: Con's story; good, but lacks real Roguish force
Review: Another in the Rogue series; this is Con Somerford's story. Now, Con is the Rogue about whom I knew least before reading The Dragon's Bride; we'd been told that he was a soldier, and that he'd survived the Napoleonic wars. He was also 'around' - but just as a name; he never actually took part in any of the plot - in Dangerous Joy. Here, for the first time, we get to know him. Con has just inherited the Earldom of Wyvern, and so is returning to Crag Wyvern in Devon, a place he has not visited for eleven years. We're also told that he has a lot of buried pain - from the death of Dare (Lord Darius, another Rogue) during the war - and that this is preventing him seeking out his friends for any more than the kind of superficial contact he'd had with Lucien and several others when hunting. He's also avoiding friends from his home in Sussex - friends we've never enountered before, since they're not Rogues. And he's contemplating marriage to Lady Anne Peckworth, Francis' jilted fiancee from Forbidden. Poor Lady Anne - as is obvious since we know that this is Con and Susan's story - gets abandoned again. (It's only later, in Beverley's author's note, that we discover that The Dragon's Bride is actually a bridge between two series, the Company of Rogues and a series she refers to jokingly as Three Guys Named George - Con's real name being George Connaught Somerford. The first story in this second series is in the anthology entitled In Praise of Younger Men, and is about Van, a character referred to in his absence in this book. Hawk, Con's other non-Rogue friend, appears in this book and his story is told in the forthcoming The Devil's Heiress). To resume. Back in Devon, Susan Kerslake - the sister and illegitimate daughter of a smuggler - dreads the arrival of the new Earl of Wyvern, because eleven years ago, when they were both fifteen, they had briefly been lovers. Then she'd sent him away believing her to be a fortune-hunter, because she'd made it clear that she wished he and not his (now dead) older brother was the heir to the Earldom. And now, she is Con's housekeeper, and has the responsibility of keeping secret her brother's leadership of the local smuggling gang. So, when the two former lovers meet, there is a certain amount of friction. There are also mysteries: missing gold, the question of how the old Earl died, Con's secrets, the lovers Susan admits to having in the meantime and so on. And we're introduced to other characters - Susan's brother and cousin, Con's intriguing secretary Race (about whom Beverley half-promises a separate book at some future date), and Hawk. I give this book a lower rating than the other books in his series for a few reasons. First, I was very disappointed that, apart from two brief scenes with Nicholas, the other Rogues don't figure in this book. It's clear now, of course, that Beverley wanted to introduce Hawk and Race; but Con was such an unknown quantity at the start of this book that having a couple of other Rogues around would have helped. It's one of the features of this series that I really enjoy: being able to meet loved characters again in subsequent books. Second, because I didn't know about the second series Beverley was beginning, I felt all at sea with Con's thoughts of people I had no knowledge of; the fact that his friend Van's story had already taken place didn't help. It was very clear that there was something important going on with Con and Van, since Van was frequently in Con's thoughts, and this distracted from the main story. Third, and most important, I never really took to Susan. In all Beverley's other books, with the exception of Forbidden Magic, I have come to love both hero and heroine, to say nothing of minor characters; here, I found myself struggling to like Susan. It wasn't just because of what she'd done to Con when they were first lovers: she was fifteen then, and could be excused. It was because of the way she behaved here; for example, she kept thinking that if only she could wipe the slate clean and tell Con she was sorry, she'd do it. And that she intended to be completely honest with him in future; she didn't want there to be any more lies between them. And yet there were plenty of opportunities where Susan had to choose between truth and more lies - and she lied. And on more than one of those occasions I simply couldn't see any good reason or justification for the lie. So Susan is not my favourite Rogue wife by any means, and I cannot see myself re-reading this book with anything like the same degree of frequency as I'll re-read the other Rogue books.
Rating:
Summary: Just the right touch.
Review: At the age of 15, Susan Kerslake mistakenly thought her new friend and first love, Con Somerford, was heir to a title. Learning the truth destroyed her dreams of the future with Con, and in her pain she cruelly hurt him. Now, a returning soldier after Waterloo, Con is a reluctant earl, and Susan his housekeeper. An unusual role for a gentlewoman, but she took the job to aid the Dragon's Horde, smugglers with ties to her family. Still attracted to each other, Con and Susan question each other's motives for acting on their desire. Once Con dreamed of being St. George. Now at Crag Wyvern, he is surrounded by dragons and believes himself more dragon than hero. Jo Beverley brings the story to life with complex, well motivated characters and a forbidding house. The intricate story has exactly the right touch of wit. For those who enjoy a Regency setting and an intelligent, sensual plot, The Dragon's Bride is a must read
Rating: 
Summary: JB has her moments; this was not one of them.
Review: I discovered Jo Beverley in IN PRAISE OF YOUNGER MEN and enjoyed Demon's story, so I looked for the two sequels. I am plagued by the thought that each of these stories should have been like the first...120 pages. Then maybe all three could have been put into one book that would have been enjoyable. The Susan character was, in a word, awful. Don't know if it was truly because she was so unlikeable or because Beverley's writing was so see-saw: "I shouldn't sleep him, but, no, I'm going to anyway"; "I should tell him the truth, but, no, I'm going to lie (again)"; "I need to leave Crag Wyvern immediately, but, no, I'll hang around for another day or two". Honestly, how can you like someone like this for 360 pages? It just had the feel of a well-plotted short story that had been s-t-r-e-t-c-e-d o-u-t unmercifully.
Rating: 
Summary: NO MORE JO B. FOR ME
Review: I discovered Jo Beverley in IN PRAISE OF YOUNGER MEN and enjoyed Demon's story, so I looked for the two sequels. I am plagued by the thought that each of these stories should have been like the first...120 pages. Then maybe all three could have been put into one book that would have been enjoyable. The Susan character was, in a word, awful. Don't know if it was truly because she was so unlikeable or because Beverley's writing was so see-saw: "I shouldn't sleep him, but, no, I'm going to anyway"; "I should tell him the truth, but, no, I'm going to lie (again)"; "I need to leave Crag Wyvern immediately, but, no, I'll hang around for another day or two". Honestly, how can you like someone like this for 360 pages? It just had the feel of a well-plotted short story that had been s-t-r-e-t-c-e-d o-u-t unmercifully.
Rating:
Summary: I would give this 3 1/2 stars
Review: I have just discovered Jo Beverley and started with the Arranged Marriage and have read them all so far in order (except Miles Story). And I have read them all in a week - so the stories are all fresh in my mind. I found this book book really boring. I agree with some of the other reviewers this just lacked something. But I do love her writing and am psyched to get started on the next book.
Rating:
Summary: Not Nearly Her Best
Review: I love Jo Beverley -- her romances and Loretta Chase's are the only ones I think are good enough to read. But I didn't like the heroine in this one; she didn't engage my sympathy and she was just not someone I'd ever want to meet. Too many of Jo Beverley's heroines are just too bitchy, and I don't think that's necessary. It's possible to be a strong, strong-minded, and talented woman without being nasty. I also got tired of the One-Incomplete-Sentence-Paragraphs. They're just irritating after awhile and not nearly as effective as Beverley seems to think they are. Finally, it wasn't nearly as romantic as most of her novels. And I don't mean sex, I mean romance. For example, the sex they have is after he's offered her (in exchange for one night) half the gold he's just found. Not romantic at all, in my view, and more than a bit tawdry. Jo Beverley's Malloren books and Rogues novels are very good, and I highly recommend those to romance readers. I liked the first "George" short story in "In Praise of Younger Men," too. But this one fell far short of my expectations. She's capable of much better writing and characterization than she displayed in this book.
Rating:
Summary: Run Don't Walk to Buy This Book!!
Review: I won't go into the detail of the story as the previous reviews do that very well. I will say that Ms. Beverley has once again proven herself as "the best of the best" in romance writers. This book has been long awaited as another book in the "Rogue" series, but it is definitely a book that will stand alone. Ms. Beverley has an incredible touch with a story--each of her books are very different and there is always some touch in her stories that puts her above the rest. I can't praise this book enough--hurry to your bookseller or order here on line--to savor one of the best books I have read in quite some while.
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