The Bachelor and the Bride by Sarah M. Eden

Dr. Barnabus Milligan has always felt called to help people, whether that means setting a broken bone or rescuing the impoverished women of London from their desperate lives on the streets as part of his work with the Dread Penny Society.

Title:  The Bachelor and the Bride
Author:  Sarah M. Eden
Series:  Dread Penny Society #4
Publish Date:  September 6, 2022
Source:  given to reviewer by publisher but a positive review was not required

Publisher’s Description: 

London, 1866

Dr. Barnabus Milligan has always felt called to help people, whether that means setting a broken bone or rescuing the impoverished women of London from their desperate lives on the streets as part of his work with the Dread Penny Society.

Three years ago, he helped rescue Gemma Kincaid by secretly marrying her to protect her from her family of notorious grave robbers.

But six months after Gemma and Barnabus exchanged vows, she realized her love for her new husband was unrequited. To protect her heart, she left, telling Barnabus to contact her if his feelings for her ever grew beyond a sense of duty.

When Barnabus sends a letter to Gemma inviting her to return home, she hopes to find a true connection between them. But unfortunately, he only wants her help to foil the Kincaids, who have been terrorizing the boroughs of London, eager to gain both money and power.

Heartbroken, Gemma agrees to help, but she warns Barnabus that she will not stay for long, and once she goes, he’ll never see her again.

Yet as the couple follows the clues that seem to connect the Kincaids to the Mastiff, the leader of London’s criminal network, Gemma and Barnabus realize they might make a better match than either of them suspected. Perhaps the marriage that had once saved Gemma’s life might now save Barnabus—and his lonely heart.

But before the once-confirmed bachelor can properly court his secret bride, they’ll need to evade the dangerous forces that are drawing ever closer to the hopeful lovers and the entire Dread Penny Society itself.

Nervous Nellie’s nervousness necessitates knowledge of the novel. In other words …SPOILERS. *BEWARE*

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Nervous Nellie says…

This story was good.  It had to be because I read it from cover to cover in trade paperback form and mostly in one day.  It’s a proper romance from Shadow Mountain Publishers with the star author Sarah Eden.  I really like Sarah’s writing.  I’ve read a few of her books and have not found one yet that I don’t like.

This story is really interesting.  It shows Victorian England at the time when grave robbing was a source of income for some people.  Gemma is part of the family that deems that their profession.  She is not treated like a family member, but more of a slave worker, so she escapes by marrying Baz.  This is only a marriage of convenience on his part as Gemma has feelings for Baz.  She knows it’s not reciprocated so she leaves.  Funny thing is that Baz doesn’t know he has feelings for her until after she’s gone.

When he needs her to help on a case that involves grave robbing, he asks her back and puts her into danger once again.  On the upside, the longer she stays with Baz, the more his feelings awaken.  They are a great team and I really enjoyed the mystery.  I will have to go back and read it again before the next book comes out just so the story melds together in my head.

The only thing that I found distracting was the penny dreadfuls intermingled in the book.  I pretty much skipped over them because I really wanted to see what happened next.

If you aren’t sure what a penny dreadful is, here is a definition from Wikipedia:

Penny dreadful – Wikipedia

Penny dreadfuls were cheap popular serial literature produced during the nineteenth century in the United Kingdom. The pejorative term is roughly interchangeable with penny horrible, penny awful,^[1] and penny blood.^[2] The term typically referred to a story published in weekly parts of 8 to 16 pages, each costing one penny.^[3] The subject matter of these stories was typically sensational, focusing on the exploits of detectives, criminals, or supernatural entities.

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