Review: Entertaining, but Unrealistic Historical
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 16, 2013
I found this book to be entertaining, but if you are a die hard regency/historical romance fan this may not be the book for you.  So many of the historical facts were completely inaccurate!  First off, Lady Sarah Dawson is referred to as Lady Dawson which is completely incorrect...she should be styled Lady Sarah, NEVER Lady Dawson!  In addition, the hero, Devlin Heathcliff, Viscount Winswood, is styled Lord Heathcliff, which again is inaccurate.  His proper form of address should be Lord Winswood.  I am so tired of authors constantly using incorrect forms of address for the aristocracy in historical novels.  It is beyond irritating and, for me, detracts from the enjoyment of the story.  Furthermore, it is a mistake that does not have to occur.  It is really very simple to google "proper forms of address for the nobility" and voila!....problem solved!  I've done it!  Unfortunately, improper forms of address is not the only historical inaccuracy included in this novella.  The morning after the hero and heroine spend the night together at the hero's house, the hero is forced to answer his own front door because the servants were "delayed" due to the snow storm that had occurred overnight.  Really?!  To my knowledge servants during historical times lived and worked in their masters' residences.  There was no going home at night and returning to work the next day.  These are only two of several historical mistakes made in this book.  Despite these inaccuracies I did enjoy the story, though I would not recommend it to someone who is a regency/historical purists.  I prefer my facts accurate, but am quite willing to give the author some artistic leeway for the good of the story.  However, in this case it was just too much.  It's really sad because I thought the novella was quite well written and with only a little research into the time period in which the book was written could have been so much better.  As for the plot, it was nice, but not very believable.  I wasn't sure why the hero fell in love with the heroine after only two brief encounters....and I do mean BRIEF!  She was really sweet, to be sure, and with more time in her company I had no doubt that he could grow to love her, but here it just happened way too quickly.  Furthermore, it wasn't at all believable that Sarah was in love with Devlin for 7 years just by watching him.  She really knew nothing about him and had never even spoken to him.  Nowadays we'd say she had the "hots" for him.  That I could understand, but love?!  I don't think so.  Oh, I also did not like Lily, the heroine's best friend.  I found her character to be too overpowering.  Quite obnoxious really.  I thought Sarah was too much under Lily's thumb.  So why 3 stars?  Well, it probably deserves 2 1/2 stars, but unfortunately Amazon does not allow 1/2 star ratings.  I decided to rate up because despite all the problems, this novella was really quite entertaining.  It was easy to read, kept me interested, and was quite well written.  I would definitely try another book by this author.  I think if she dedicated more time researching the time period in which she set her novel she could produce a really first rate historical novel.