Siria's Reviews > The Spanish Bride

I really didn't like this one. While Heyer might have managed to combine action and a more intimate narrative to great effect in An Infamous Army, I don't think you would ever know she was capable of it based on The Spanish Bride. I've long had a great interest in the Peninsular and Napoleonic Wars, and I found my attention wandering for vast swathes of this; I can only guess at the soporific effect it would have on someone who does not have the same level of historical interest.

I was also a little uneasy, not necessarily at how young Juana is at the beginning of this book, (since I know she really did marry Harry Smith at the age of fourteen, and since it wasn't unheard of for marriages to be contracted at that age, even towards the end of the Regency period), but rather at the attitude both she and other people show to the marriage. It was just a little bit unnerving for me to see how it apparently wasn't a culture shock at all for Juana to go from a sheltered convent upbringing to living as a fourteen year old girl in the middle of an army camp, and engaged in (apparently) a full sexual relationship with her husband with no qualms whatsoever. I don't think Heyer managed to sell me on that.

The biggest downside of the book to me was that this was another one of Heyer's Stormy and Tempestuous relationships, something along the lines of Leonie in These Old Shades. Given how much I thoroughly disliked Leonie's character, I wasn't really inclined to be won over by Juana's alternate displays of acting like a hellcat (or a 'varmint', as Harry insisted on calling her), and acting like a remorseful, submissive wife. It irritated me, and I really can't see myself ever re-reading this one.