Review: Everything I dislike in a romance.
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 07 7, 2012
My least favorite romances are those in which the happy couple spend too much of the book whingeing on about crap that would be resolved in one sentence if they sat down and had a conversation. I understand that real, deep relationship challenges are harder to develop than "when he/she finds out ________ he/she won't love me anymore! Wah!" but it drives me nuts nonetheless.This book is basically entirely organized around a marriage based on deceit and secrets. So the entire time they are engaged in the aforementioned whingeing, of course the author is making sure the reader knows that they really love each other and could forgive the peccadilloes, trysts, lies of ommission, trickery, and other unwholesome acts attributed to their respective spouses. That in itself might seem hard to believe, but whatever.Unfortunately, they don't find out that they could have been honest all along until the last chapter. Yes, that's right- they spent the ENTIRE BOOK deceiving each other, avoiding each other, and otherwise being miserable wretches. Yay!I bought this book because I wanted to see how things turned out for him after he got so royally screwed in the last book. Poor guy!I also agree with the Publisher's Weekly review that the book was very light on historical flavor, but I have found most of the historical romances from romance publishers to be similar. Given that readers don't seem to care, authors just don't make the effort.