Brenda and Effie are two ladies living in Whitby, a little town by the sea with a very pitturesque graveyard. They are special ladies, Brenda drives a bed-and-breakfast and Effie owns a bric-a-brac store. They have keen eye and use this to study the strange happenings in their little town.... The ladies themselves have their own secrets.
A collegue of mine was really enthousiastic about this story. Maybe that's why I was a little dissapointed at first. My expectations were just too high. And I was a little stressed to read it because I really had to bring it back to the library. (So much to read and little time). In the end I got into it, and then I really liked it. For fans of gothic classics like Dracula this book has some extra, nice details. Easy, fun read. ( )

Quite amusing: two middle-aged ladies investigate mysterious and dark doings in Whitby, traditional home of mysterious and dark doings, but one of them is herself hiding a Terrible Secret. It is plainly obvious from about page 2 – if the title didn't give it away – who she is and what's her secret, but that doesn't hamper its entertainment value. The oddest thing about the book is that the whole of it is really just a prologue to the final chapter, and it ends on a cliffhanger. Presumably the author plans a series, but it's a little unsatisfying. ( )

This is the tale of Brenda, who runs a little B&B in Whitby. Summer is over, so she's settling into a quiet time of the year with her best friend Effie, who runs a junk shop next door. But it's not as uneventful as expected, with mysterious guests and incidents in the town. And neither Brenda nor Effie are quite who they appear to be either.

This was a fun read. Effie and Brenda are great characters, and while the book for a while felt like a series of disconnected incidents, it did all make sense as a whole by the end. The plot was not completely resolved, but left nicely open for others in the series. And since I liked Brenda & Effie, I'm happy with reading on in this series.

And if you're wondering why Whitby sounds familiar: it's where Count Dracula arrives in England. And that might give you a hint of what to expect with this series also. :) ( )

Good read, a bit slow and bitty, plenty of subplots while trying to keep the main story line flowing, I think he was trying to build in to a series from the start, and so was trying to give the main Characters some depth

Review from Badelynge
My previous encounters with Paul Magrs have been limited to his Doctor Who fiction, none of which quite tickled my Doctor Who sensibilities, being for the most part too strange and off centre. He did create a great character though in Iris Wildthyme, who would go on to be so ably voiced by Katy Manning in the audio stories made by Big Finish. I would have been reluctant to try any more of his work if I hadn't been tempted by the promise of a book set in Whitby that was endorsed by Susan Hill, being respectively a favourite holiday destination of mine and a thoroughly respected author by me. Never the Bride follows the episodic adventure of Whitby B&B landlady Brenda and her friend Effie as they encounter a series of mysterious strange events whilst attempting to hide their own considerable strangeness from the world.
This was a lot better than most of his Doctor Who work. It's quite light, still somewhat surreal and a nice place for Magrs to pour his Gothic fancies inspired by the writings of Shelley, Wells, Stoker etc not to mention their filmic incarnations à la Universal & Hammer. It's the bizarre mix of the strange and prosaic which gives the book something different. I'm still not sold on Magrs prose but he does have lots of good ideas and they seem a lot more at home in this setting. I think it just passes the mark enough for me to think about trying the next book in the series. ( )