Bride for Real by Lynne Graham
The Volakis Vow, Part 2
Harlequin Presents
Contemporary
ISBN: 978-0373130115
Reviewed by Vanessa




Tally Spencer Volakis has finished her degree and she is a successful interior designer.  She longs to leave the past behind, and she is ready to put a period at the end of her disastrous marriage to entrepreneur, Lysander Volakis.  Returning to the marital home in France, she is prepared to finish off her old life, in order to embark on her new one.  Tally is surprised that Sander has decided to be at the house while she is there.  She hasn’t been with him for some time now, yet their sizzling chemistry is still present and soon sparks are flying!!  Sander calls to something within Tally and she doesn’t want to feel that way about him anymore.  She just wants to exist because to be alive in his arms with no emotions returned hurts too much!

Sander isn’t ready to release his estranged wife from his grasp.  He longs to heal the cracks in their relationship and pick up the pieces from the demise of their marriage.  Sander knows he is at fault for the breakdown in their marriage, and he just wants to rebuild from that point, without fully dealing with all of the fallout that transpired after their estrangement.  Tally doesn’t want to reconcile with Sander, and she fights him until a third party helps place Sander in the position that Tally had been previously put in.  Will the ties that bound them be strong enough to overcome the latest deception in their association, or will these two have to finalize their nuptials?

Bride for Real was an engrossing tale that showed the deeper feelings of the protagonists and helped them to find a believable resolution.  Both Sander and Tally had baggage that they carried from their childhoods, and they really needed that solidifying, romantic love to overcome that luggage.  I found that both Sander and Tally stayed true to their characters from the first book, The Marriage Betrayal.  Sander is an arrogant man, but he opens himself up, pushes his pride aside, and tells Tally what it is that he wants . . . her!  Tally, because of her love for others, always thinks she is doing best for them even if it hurts her in the end, and she learns that she doesn’t have to sacrifice herself for others.

Bride for Real explored the deceptions that these characters believed because they didn’t consider the feelings of the other party.  Instead, they only saw things through their own eyes.  Both Sander and Tally were shown the errors of their ways from The Marriage Betrayal in Bride for Real.  Bride for Real also strengthened the groundwork that Sander and Tally had built in the first book of this two part set.

I believed in Sander’s sorrow for the further pain that was inadvertently inflicted upon Tally in a Bride for Real, when his roosters came home to roost.  I commend Tally for looking past that pain and seeing the situation for what it is and letting her love overcome that.  She could have held onto a grudge and the pain, but that isn’t within her character.  Bride for Real helped Sander and Tally find the very important, missing ingredient that their relationship seemed to be lacking in The Marriage Betrayal so that the reader could believe in the HEA.  Yes, Sander and Tally walked through fire to attain their HEA, but that just makes their bonds all the more resolute in binding them to each other.  I felt that both Sander and Tally were completely redeemed in the end of Bride for Real.  My suggestion is to read both books in this two-part set to see how far Sander and Tally have grown emotionally to obtain their HEA, and I joyfully recommend Bride for Real.