The Wife Test (Paperback)

This one's unusual in that the hero is the one who wants nothing to do with women; he wants to be a monk! But Chloe very much wants to be a wife; alas, she doesn't know her parentage and cannot be one of the Brides of Virtue without that knowledge. So she tricks her way into a group of brides-to-be. She not only has to discover her parentage and find herself a husband, but she also has to decide who the other 4 brides will marry. But the king appoints Sir Hugh to help her, and he begins to have very un-monklike thoughts about her. Their battle of wills is full of humor and struggle.

As good if not better than The Husband Test. Delightful.

Escorting the 'maidens' party to England was the ill-tempered, intense and very gruff Sir Hugh de Sennett whose ill will toward women was notorious - and most probably why the King, who was known to enjoy a jest or two, thought Hugh would be the perfect escort and later assistant 'wife tester' along with Chloe. Raised in a monastery since the age of five by monks, Hugh did not hold the female population in any type of esteem at all - likening the whole lot of them to instruments of the devil whose sole duty was to corrupt all men! AND in his mind, the leader of this pack of females, Chloe, had to be the worst - why else couldn't he erase the image of her azure-blue eyes, and long white legs, from his mind! Chloe, who'd been brought up under the resolute abbess of the convent of the Brides of Virtue had enough spunk to probably be about the only woman that could make Hugh see that the brainwashing he endured in the monastery truly did taint his outlook at womankind. Hugh had to decide whether he truly was a 'hypocrite' to his beliefs, or that what he had learned in the seminary was not necessarily the rules that should be applied to men 'outside' those hallowed walls.

Krahn's very entertaining sequel to THE HUSBAND TEST - which stands completely on its own - quickly turns into an, exciting adventure and battle of the sexes. The story mixes terrific characters, humor, sensual anticipation, and the mystery of who and why someone wanted to harm the brides, into a delicious blend of creative and skillful writing. Chloe, whose courage, spunk, and a very high threshold of 'forgiveness' (so much to forgive!) and understanding for Hugh - who managed to stay a self-righteous prig through out most of the novel - is a heroine to love! The one factor that saves Hugh from being a total jerk was discovering how his childhood and upbringing gave him such a skewed up outlook on life. I was totally entertained from start to finish and absolutely howled over Hugh's 'confession' of his immoral thoughts towards Chloe! With terrific secondary characters, subtle wit and humor used in the dialogs, and very creative plots, I find that this author is fast on her way to becoming an 'auto buy' for me! (...)