GRR Reviews The Kidnapped Christmas Bride by Jane Porter

The Kidnapped Christmas Bride has a somewhat inaccurate title, which is not really a spoiler.

Trey Sheenan wasted most of his early life cultivating his reputation as Marietta's bad boy... and got his fiancee McKenna Douglas pregnant. He had wanted to settle down with her until a bar fight resulted in him spending years in jail for manslaughter. He had thoroughly reformed, hoping for a second chance. One day, he was suddenly released a few days before Christmas and his brother came to pick him up... And he brought very bad news... McKenna is getting married... To someone else. Now, on the eve of McKenna's marriage and just a few days from Christmas, Trey embarked on a desperate plan to convince her that marrying someone else would be wrong... and to spend Christmas as a family... Even if he had to be.. persuasive.

Trey is sufficiently repentant, but McKenna was, well, a bit conflicted. To explain the rest, I'll have to spoil a bit of the story.

I WARNED YOU

SPOILER AHEAD

Any way, McKenna went willingly so it wasn't a really a kidnapping. Not that Trey is giving her much of a chance to say now, but she did go with him, carrying the baby. Not that anyone else would believe Trey didn't kidnap them of course, his "reputation" of ex-jailbird and all that. But basically, McKenna wasn't marrying for love, that much was obvious. But the lead up to the end was basically one act of sacrifice and heroics that convinced McKenna that Trey was the man she knew, not the bad boy, and she's willing to marry him instead of whoever she was supposed to marry. Uh... that's pretty easy to change her mind.

Category: Contemporary

Primary Plot: Can just-released-from-jail man convince his ex-fiancee (and mother of his child) NOT to marry someone else?

Tropes: bad boy, reunion, holiday, return, single parent, arrange marriage, marriage of convenience

Overall Rating:  3/5