I recently saw the movie Bridget Jones’s Diary and read Sharon Shinn’s Jenna Starborn. Both of these are re-imaginings of classic tales and neither was quite right. Since finishing Dodd’s new book I’ve felt like Goldilocks entering the bears’ house. She sits on one bed, which is too hard, another, which is too soft, and a third which is just right. Bridget tried a little too hard (only the presence of Colin Firth kept me watching). And Jenna didn’t do enough to distinguish itself in any way, other then setting, from Jane Eyre. Which brings me to the third option. Christina Dodd has gotten it just right (well almost) with her re-working of what many would consider a more modern classic, The Sound of Music.

So why did this one work so well? Primarily it’s because of the media. The Sound of Music was certainly romantic but it was a musical first, with all the pageantry that implies. Don’t get me wrong, it’s certainly on my list of favorites, but it isn’t able to serve the viewer in quite the same way as a romance novel does a reader. We see Maria and Captain Von Trapp exchange some longing glances and dance together. They sing some songs about each other and are parted for a span of time only to reconnect and face down the Nazis. But what do we really know about them? That they can sing?

In My Favorite Bride the reader gets to know a little more about the protagonists. What’s even better is that what is learned has direct bearing on how these people relate and react to each other and the situation. Miss Samantha Prendregast is a former London pickpocket. She’s been taken under the wing of Adorna, Lady Bucknell, and trained as a governess. She’s a great governess but her outspoken ways have gotten her in trouble. She needs to get the heck out of Dodge and Lady Bucknell has just the placement for her.

Samantha soon finds herself reluctantly on her way to Devil’s Fell, a remote manor in the mountainous Lake District, to take on the role of governess to the six daughters of Colonel William Gregory. As far as she’s concerned the hills are alive – with carnivorous animals like wolves and bears – and she’s far from happy at the prospect of spending any time there. Her feelings are cemented after she’s abandoned by her driver on the road to her new post and is accosted by an abrupt, though handsome, stranger.

This wouldn’t be a romance if the handsome stranger didn’t turn out to be her new employer, Colonel William Gregory. As a military man William expects a well-run household and well-run, organized children. Samantha’s first run-in with the children and their father almost convinces her that this is all that matters to him. But her next conversation with him turns her thinking around.

“Kyla is getting a cold. Please notify her nursemaid and have the child moved to a bedchamber separate from her sisters.”
Samantha blinked. Whatever she had expected, it wasn’t this. “Indeed I will sir. But if I might ask, how did you know?”
“She was scratching her nose. Mara has outgrown her boots. I’ll order new ones, but they won’t be here for a least a week…In fact check all the girls to see if they’re in need of new footwear.”
“Yes, sir.” Samantha strained to remember what he’d seen that alerted him to Mara’s problem. “Mara was…rubbing her foot against her leg.”

In a few short sentences William was not only winning over Samantha but very quickly reminding me why I’ve always been in love with Christopher Plummer.

Where the author excelled was in the interactions between the characters. Earlier in that same scene with William, Samantha tells herself “of course, Colonel Gregory was insufferable. But then, according to a great many people, so was she.” I liked that she realizes she could be just as much a part of the problem in their discord. Not many romance heroines do. An added bonus is that Dodd writes intelligent conversation for almost all of the supporting characters as well. The dialogue is natural and realistic. Just about everyone from the well-drawn children to William’s possible future fiancée, Lady Teresa Marchant, and his colleague, Duncan, acts in wholly believable fashion.

I’ve used the words “almost” and “just about” a couple of times in this review and they’re the key to my overall assessment of the book. It came thisclose to receiving DIK status, but not quite. The largest stumbling block involved the villains and the plot that involves them. It had something to do with Russian spies and William’s plotting to unmask them, but in reality was not all that interesting and seemed to be thrown into the story at awkward moments. The spy plot is there simply as a deux ex machina and only works insofar as it relates to and impacts on William and Samantha’s relationship. There are many other less convoluted ways the author could have created the same tensions.

Christopher Plummer and Julie Andrews did a fabulous job with longing glances, but because of the medium we never get to fully know what they’re thinking. And when it gets down to it, we don’t know who these people are outside of this relationship and the events that are happening to them right now. Why was Maria so set on being a nun in the first place? What happened to the Captain’s wife other then that she’s dead of course? And how was the sex?

I could probably come up with a dozen other questions, if pressed. That’s where reading a story instead of viewing one can make the difference. A difference that in this case was worked so well I thought I’d found that just right bed and the just right porridge in the bears’ house at last. Not since Ms. Dodd’s earlier medievals have I so enjoyed one of her books. And by the way, the sex was great too.