Review: (2.5 stars) Less (pages) would be more (enjoyable).
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 29, 2012
Well, at pennies (or fractions thereof) per page, you certainly get your money's worth here.  But about halfway through I found myself looking at the % read all too frequently.This is slow.  Really, really slow.  It was slow enough to make me wish I were a speed reader.  Instead, I skimmed through many a page.  Skimming, BTW, did not make me miss a beat.  I know exactly who did what when and frankly, my dears, frequently I didn't really give a you-know-what.  This book needed to be pared down in number of pages and the chemistry between H and h (and I am NOT talking sex) needed to be ramped up.The plot advancement was too leisurely for me and, in spite of there being enough pages to do so, the characters were not as well developed as I like.  For example, we are told how adventurous our heroine is but nothing that happens or that she says or does indicated much of this to me.  Another thing I couldn't get a handle on was the tepid relationship between the heroine and her sister.  That was glossed over. In addition, many a secondary character, such as the unpleasant aunt or cousin, was rather one-dimensional.The book had its moments, of course.  The writing was in imitation of 1800s romances or comedies of errors and was relatively successful in that respect and also in not having much anachronistic language.  The problem is that, in attempting to imitate that style of writing, this book has all the faults of those old books (such as lengthy exposition) and few of the real delights (such as subtle, witty humor and entertaining dialogue).