7 h 45 minAudiobook7 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 7 h 45 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if a dangerous secret mission leads to a wedding no one plans—and a love no one expects?
In The Best Man, Grace Livingston Hill brings a risky government mission into the path of an accidental marriage. Secret service work sets the story moving, but the wedding changes its direction. Danger and affection meet in a romance where neither the marriage nor the feelings that follow belong to anyone’s plan.
Hill makes love a question of character as well as feeling. Pressure tests her heroes and heroines, and their choices show who they are. This story pairs a mystery’s forward pull with gentle faith and a firm moral sense. The promise is adventure with warmth: a world where danger has a place, but cruelty and cynicism do not.
What you’ll discover
- A mission with risks Follow a secret service assignment that brings danger into an unexpected love story.
- A wedding without a plan Discover a romance that turns the usual order of courtship and marriage upside down.
- Character under pressure Watch choices matter as love and conscience meet the demands of a risky adventure.
- Affection that arrives unexpectedly Enjoy the warmth of love that grows without being forced or carefully schemed.
- Faith and a warm heart Find gentle faith woven into a fast story with a hopeful moral center.
Who will love it
You will love this if you enjoy spy chases mixed with old-fashioned romance, tender love stories built on a happy mistake, and heroes who keep their honor under pressure.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A sudden order sends Gordon to New York
- A stray dog and a hurt boy cost him time
- A swapped paper at a dangerous dinner table
- A closed carriage carries him to a church
- Sad blue eyes draw him into the ceremony
- The real bridegroom is shut in a closet
- A runaway morning on a country road
- Cruel letters stand between them
- Duty and the heart pull one man two ways
Who’s who
- Cyril GordonA young Secret Service agent, honest and calm in danger, who must carry a stolen message home while a stranger's trouble claims his heart.
- Celia HathawayA gentle, brave young woman who agrees to a marriage she dreads in order to shield her mother and brother from ruin.
- George HayneA selfish, scheming man who threatens Celia so that he can take her fortune, and who is delayed on his own wedding day.
- Jefferson HathawayCelia's cheerful younger brother, who plans the wedding trip and takes a liking to the man he thinks is his new brother-in-law.
- Mr. HolmanA crafty New York host who holds the stolen cipher and gathers friends to read it for their own gain.
- The chiefGordon's brusque, shrewd superior in Washington, who plans every detail of the mission and watches his new agent closely.
- The thickset manA hired pursuer in evening clothes who follows Gordon from the dinner to the church and onto a train.
- Julia BentleyA stylish Washington woman who expects Gordon to marry her and keeps calling to claim his evenings.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 7 h 45 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 7 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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25 languages, side by side
Read and hear Der Trauzeuge in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Der Trauzeuge
by Grace Livingston Hill · 1914
A hunted Secret Service agent leaps into a carriage that carries him straight to a wedding.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
A Secret Service agent races to New York to steal back a coded message, with killers on his heels. Then he slips into a church to hide and finds himself standing at a wedding.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A sudden order sends Gordon to New York
Cyril Gordon is young, rich enough to be comfortable, and new to the Secret Service. One morning his chief, a man of few words with sharp blue eyes, orders him onto a train leaving in thirty-two minutes. Gordon must take the name John Burnham and go to a dinner at the house of a Mr. Holman.
The task is plain but dangerous. A message of national importance, written in cipher, has been stolen from a government man. Holman holds it and wants an expert to read it. Gordon carries a duplicate paper with a different meaning, a disguise of false eyebrows and a goatee, and one rule: let nothing hinder him.
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What is The Best Man by Grace Livingston Hill about?
It follows Cyril Gordon, a Secret Service agent sent to New York to recover a stolen cipher. Chased by enemies, he takes refuge in a church and finds himself caught in a wedding mistake.
Who is Celia Hathaway in The Best Man?
Celia is the young bride at the center of the story. She has agreed to marry George Hayne to protect her family, and she meets Gordon, the stranger beside her, without knowing who he is.
Is The Best Man a true story?
No, it is a work of fiction by Grace Livingston Hill. It mixes adventure and romance, with trains, telegrams and horse-drawn carriages.
The author
Grace Livingston Hill
1865–1947 · American Christian novelist
Grace Livingston Hill was an American novelist and short story writer. She was born in Wellsville, New York, in 1865 and later lived in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, where she died in 1947. She wrote Christian romance novels in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including Marcia Schuyler and The Man of the Desert.
More by Grace Livingston Hill
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