Review: The Wedding

The Wedding
5 stars
Julie Garwood
Genre: romance, historical, highlander
 

This was far from the first time I read The Wedding by Julie Garwood. This and several other

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Highlander romances written around the same time (late 90s I think) are like comfort food to me. When I’m feeling like a classic historical romance, these are the ones I go back to time and again. They are the novels that inspired me to start writing, and they continue to inspire me every time I re-read them.

 For modern readers, they might be a little cliché, and I suppose you might say the heroes can be a little overbearing. (They’re highlanders. What did you expect?) But Garwood’s heroines can hold their own, and I find her stories to be a celebration of both the masculine and feminine.


Garwood's historicals are not clean novels per se, but they were written at a time before “Fifty Shades” threw its shade on the romance tradition. Nor are they bodice rippers or novels that portray abusive relationships as sexy as was an unfortunate trend during the 80s and 90s.

If you want to introduce someone to the romance genre, any one of the novels in Garwood's Laird’s Finacees series or the Highland Laird’s series would be a good choice. Given Garwood's popularity, they also have the advantage of being commonly available at your local library for those who may be short on book funds. While the stories are interlaced, I don't think they don't necessarily need to be read in order to get full enjoyment.

I personally chose Garwood’s books to introduce my husband to romance novels While I can’t claim he’s become an avid romance reader, at least he knows what I’m shooting for when he proofreads my manuscripts.