Review: Elusive
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 13, 2013
The story premise is a good one to get romantic tension going. The hero behaves like an ass and marries the heroine while drunk in order to fulfll the terms of his fathers will. He then runs off to London and cannot even remember what she looks like. While all this has the perfect recipe for a good romance, somehow this failed for me. It has flashes of humour with the classic houseparty misunderstandings. But it feels stilted and in places like the author was simply filling out a form - ballroom scene:tick, walk in garden: tick, luscious but not very nice mustress:tick, attempt to compromise hero into marriage: tick, heroine exhibits her feistiness tick. And so on. I felt the stiffness of the narrative in the sample but the story was good so  thought I would try it. I liked the characters and I finished it in pretty much one sitting so it is a very light and easy read. It is neither good nor bad. Lots of people seem to have enjoyed it judging by the reviews so do not let me put you off. There is a good story line if a little cliched but what regency romance is not. There is some bodice ripping and a few carboard villains to spice the whole thing up. The final few chapters confirmeed this firmly as a 3 for me. These are a half hearted attempt to put our heroine in danger in order that the rugged hero can rush into the night to rescue her and put her final doubts to rest.