Review: Saccharine Sweetness of Idealized Chivalry Looking for an editor
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 09 18, 2012
edited because I forced myself to finish the thing.  It made me more and more nauseous as I continued.  The number of things wrong with this just increased with each change of scenery.  The below (original) review still stands.  Basically, the premise was excellent, the execution lacked proper historical mentality that each thing they did was out of sync with how people of that time would have acted and spoke.My apologies.  I downloaded this for free.  The premise was intriguing and the Book Cover Excellent.  Instead of adding it to my TBR pile I started immediately (mainly because of the cover).  I forced myself to read at least to 50%, I wanted to at least finish it, but my stomach just can't take any more sugar, let alone the various changes in dialogue style and the anachronistic behavior and sentence structure of the characters.As stated this book has a great premise and follows it quite well, except for one big problem.  The utterly chivalrous drivel that comes from Braxton the hero's mouth.  Given the time period and the profession of this man his actions and speech just do not fit.  He is a mercenary with 180 men who is known for his viciousness on the field who after one look gives up all of his plans to play house with a mouse.The heroine is clueless.  A woman who lived with what she had to would never have allowed her 15 year old daughter to get near any of these men.  In this story the heroine, Gray, keeps reiterating that her daughter is too young to marry and should wait a few years.  In this time period 15 would be the correct age of looking for a husband for the young woman.  Also, for the time period a girl of 15 would have learned how to run an entire house, while in this novel the spoiled brat runs around beating up on young squires.So far the characters are cookie cut outs.  You have the Dudley Do Right Hero, The self sacrificing clueless perfect little Stepford heroine.  The spoiled Nellie Olson of a daughter.  The manipulative status seeking, witch with a b of a grandmother.  And the ever faithful followers of Dudley.As stated before the premise is great.  The execution is juvenile.  It feels more like a teenage fantasy of how life should be without any experience to flesh the story out to reality.