A delightful review of The Spanish Bride from The Australian Woman’s Mirror (9 July 1940):
A fourteen-years-old with the romantic-sounding name of Juana Maria de Los Dolores de Leon is The Spanish Bride (Heinemann Ltd. 9/6: N.S.W. Bookstall) but she is better known in history as Lady Smith. The love story of little Juana and Major Harry Smith is a familiar one—the MIRROR recalled it not so long ago— and Georgette Heyer has now used it to supply the romantic interest to a book which is a vivid and graphic record of the final stages of the Peninsular War.
Commencing with the storming and sacking of Badajos, from the horrors of which Smith rescued Juana and married her, the story follows Wellington’s campaign on through the battle of Salamanca, the occupation of Madrid, the crushing defeat of the French at Vittoria, the pursuit into France anti victory over Marshal Soult at Toulouse. Then after a brief spell, while Harry is fighting in America and Juana moping for him in London comes the final flare-up of Napoleon’s escape from Elba, the Hundred Days and Waterloo.
As The Spanish Bride is a factual story there is no plot other than that provided by history, but the period in which it is set is so rich in incident that Juana’s wanderings with Wellington’s army as described by Miss Heyer make a fascinating tale.
SOURCE: Franziska, “LET’S TALK ABOUT BOOKS” 1940-07-09. Australian Woman’s Mirror, pp. 22.
