The Curse of the Braddock Brides

by Erica Obey

Lord Hardcastle, a single man with a title and a slew of poor female relations, may be in need of a wife,  but that doesn’t mean American heiress Libba Wadsworth is interested.  Not with the mysterious, orchid hunter Will Ransome lurking about. Rather than endure yet another awful Coming-out Season of boring balls and vacuous visits from suitors, Libba Wadsworth, in one of her more self-indulgent moments, contemplates the romantic thrill of throwing herself off Cora’s Leap to go down in history as yet another of the cursed Braddock Brides. She knows full well she won’t do it, but still ... the men she’s had to endure season after season certainly made a leap into the abyss appealing. Until one Lord Hardcastle comes to call and Will Ransome, claiming to be Hardcastle’s batman and an adventurous orchid hunter, shows up. But can she trust either of them? And, more importantly, are they really who they claim to be?  The  Curse of the Braddock Brides  is the first in a series of historical romances inspired by the stately homes of the Hudson Valley.

Genres: Romance, Historical Fiction

310 pages, Paperback

Published April 25, 2017

About the author

There are three places you can find Erica when she’s not writing: on a hiking trail, in her garden, or at the back of the pack in her local road race. Her favorite kind of vacation is backpacking across Dartmoor or among the hills of Wales in order to find new and exciting legends about Druids, fairy folk and unsolved mysteries to inspire her own writing. After she graduated from Yale University, this interest in folkore and legend led her to an M.A. in Creative Writing from City College of New York and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the City University of New York, where she published articles and a book about female folklorists of the nineteenth century before she decided she’d rather be writing the stories herself.

Along with their macaw Fasolt and a rotating assortment of cats, she and her husband divide their time between New York City and Woodstock, where they spend far too much time gardening – growing native woodland plants, roses, and old-fashioned cottage favorites, while fighting the chipmunks for the fruits of their kitchen garden – and losing. She is passionately committed to finding new and exciting recipes and eating with the seasons, although it’s abundantly clear that if she and her husband actually have to live off the land, they’d die. Check out some pictures on her website, beginning on St. David’s Day (Mar.1.)

As for her supremely untalented running, well, it gives her a chance to relax and think about her novels, even if, when she’s training for a marathon, it literally takes all day – as does walking the 2 miles back and forth from her apartment in Manhattan to Fordham University, where she teaches writing.

Reviews

[Elizabeth Quan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amusing.

[Ann Theis]

PW

[Eileen Charbonneau · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Guilded Age story is first in a series inspired by the stately homes of the Hudson River Valley. This one: Rhinecliff’s lovely and eccentric Wildersteen. Libba Wadsworth is an American heiress being courted by a new (impoverished) English earl and experienced spy and orchid hunter Will Ransome, aka William, Lord Hardcastle. It takes a brave man for the task, as, since Colony days, the Braddock family brides have a habit of slipping over cliffs. Their suitors come to similarly mean ends. Then there’s the business of poor Libba's being on the shelf and both a “hoyen and a bluestocking,” her father’s business based on the quarryman’s trade, and her beautiful mother’s secret past.
But Will is up to the task, once he establishes his bona fides over an impostor suitor, who soon becomes a murder victim, with bodies to follow. The mysteries are two generations thick in this well-researched romp tinged by an acerbic Wildean humor. Convoluted sentence structures and abrupt viewpoint shifts sometimes get in the way of the storytelling, but our self-depreciating hero and oft confused but always delightful heroine come to the rescue. Looking forward to more adventures the historic Hudson River Valley