Review: Sea silliness
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 07 21, 2012
I got this because (1) it was free on Kindle (2) all the reviewers except one gave it five stars.  The reviewer who didn't give it five stars--she only gave it one--well, her review came across as illiterate (thanks to the typos and grammar errors) so I didn't give it any credence.Turns out, I should have.  It was one of the silliest books I've read in a long time--and I read a lot.  It wasn't silly in a good way either--it never made me laugh or even smile.  It was full of women acting like idiots--either sobbing uncontrollably, setting the rigging on fire, turning a pig loose on board ship, etc.  Sorry, not amusing.  It's not that I have no sense of humor.  I love Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum, and Stephanie is a one-women walking disaster zone.  But it takes skill to make that kind of thing funny.  This author doesn't have that skill.The book begins with the heroine falling and the hero picking her up.  By doing so, the author establishes right away that the heroine is a clumsy fool--even though I'm sure that wasn't her intent.  I should make a pledge never to read a book that has the heroine and hero meeting when she trips and falls.  It's a bad sign of a total lack of imagination on the part of the author.  I don't think I've ever read a good romance that begins with the heroine falling down.  If anyone can think of one, let me know.The book isn't totally unreadable, unlike some, but you can't in good conscience call it a Regency.  The plot is implausible, many details are inaccurate...the whole book should be considered a "fantasy" rather than Regency or Historical novel.  By the end of the book, the author has managed to pair off all the characters but one.This book is supposed to be part of a series.  It opens with a prologue (confusingly written) about four schoolboys who pledge to be there for each other.  This is never really followed up.  The hero does meet up with one or two of the others, and they offer to give him any assistance he needs, but that's the total extent of the tie-in to the rest of the series.I love Regencies, I love humor, I love books in series, but I don't love nonsensical novels. This is one to skip.