A review by arabellasbookshelves
Brighter Than The Sun by Julia Quinn
4.0
In this book we follow a marriage of convenience - for both parties - between Charles (Earl who needs to wed before his 30th in order to get his money and inheritance) and Eleanor (Victoria’s sister who is on the verge of killing her future stepmother and wants to be in charge of her own life, and finances, without having to run it all through her father) and the pair begin on their journey of an extremely unfortunate beginning to their relationship as everything that Ellie does is sabotaged by someone who is later revealed to be Claire (Charles’ 14 year old cousin who wanted him to wait and marry her - strange but Ellie helps her to come to her senses) and the turmoil that they go through in the duration of this book was so back and forth but I loved it. Sue me. As the book continues and Charles and Ellie grow closer, it is then revealed that the most recent sabotages were actually attempts on Charles’ life committed by his cousin Cecil who wanted to inherit the money for himself and decided that killing all the heirs (and Ellie by association) would grant him that chance, although Charles revealed that should he die all his money would go to Ellie. Ellie recognises the truth of Charles’ abduction and goes there herself where after a lot of tension, she shoots and kills Cecil so that they can finally live in a semblance of peace as a family and eventually we also see them begin to start their own.
From the get go I knew that I preferred this book to Everything and the Moon as the characters were just so much more likeable and the storyline was also a lot stronger in my opinion and I loved the marriage of convenience becoming one of love and adoration very quickly on both sides despite their attempts to suppress it. I also liked the small details they picked up off each other such as Ellie picking up on Charles’ habit to create seemingly pointless lists about everything as I just found it adorable. Another thing I loved was the way Ellie made the best of all situations, doing her best to make things positive for everyone even after the burning fiasco caused by Claire and you can just tell she would make an incredible mother based on her reactions with Claire and Judith alone. Adorable. One thing I did not like as much though was the ending of the book with Cecil as it was very sudden and seemingly out of place within the rest of the novel but other than that I did have fun reading this book and loved the cheeky nature of Charles combined with the headstrong one of Ellie and I just think that they make a good pair anyway.
From the get go I knew that I preferred this book to Everything and the Moon as the characters were just so much more likeable and the storyline was also a lot stronger in my opinion and I loved the marriage of convenience becoming one of love and adoration very quickly on both sides despite their attempts to suppress it. I also liked the small details they picked up off each other such as Ellie picking up on Charles’ habit to create seemingly pointless lists about everything as I just found it adorable. Another thing I loved was the way Ellie made the best of all situations, doing her best to make things positive for everyone even after the burning fiasco caused by Claire and you can just tell she would make an incredible mother based on her reactions with Claire and Judith alone. Adorable. One thing I did not like as much though was the ending of the book with Cecil as it was very sudden and seemingly out of place within the rest of the novel but other than that I did have fun reading this book and loved the cheeky nature of Charles combined with the headstrong one of Ellie and I just think that they make a good pair anyway.