Review: Eh... I Expected Better
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 11, 2013
While I didn't dislike this anthology, I didn't love it either.  To be honest, considering the author's involved, I expected a lot better.  Maya Rodale in particular is a favorite of mine and yet I found her offering to be not nearly as deep as I expected."That Rogue Jack" - unfortunately Ms. Rodale just didn't have enough pages to do either of these characters justice.  It's a cute introduction to the anthology, but that's mostly what it is.  Cute.  Jack's basically an idiot who can't remember where he put THE ring... the heirloom that is supposed to be the wedding ring for the Duke's wedding in a little over a week, and at the beginning of each section of the story we get a little tease that tells us a little bit more about where the ring likely ended up.  This becomes frustrating after awhile.  Why? Because of Henrietta.I mostly liked Henrietta.  She's a poor orphan who is companion to the Duke's great-great (and very eccentric) aunt Sophriana.  She knows that she has nowhere to go if she's turned out of this position and so she does everything she can to be prim and proper and not risk her place... up until she is charged with getting the ring from reckless Jack and all of the sudden she's being swept up into kissing and doing all sorts of things that could ruin her and get her dismissed from her position - especially cuz they STILL CAN'T FIND THE RING.  Considering that she thinks her livelihood depends on finding this ring you'd think she'd be a little bit less obsessed with Jack and little bit more obsessed with actually finding the ring.Both characters end up coming off as more caricatures than anything else.  They just didn't have enough depth."P.S. I Love You" is an obvious play off of the famous play "Cyrano de Bergerac."  This story drew me in a little bit more because we get more of both characters - Rosanne and Frank are exchanging letters, but Frank's letters are written by his cousin Christian.  Frank loves Rosanne completely but he doesn't have any more depth than Jack - unfortunately Rosanne doesn't realize that because his cousin Christian has quite a bit of depth and it comes out in the letters.  One thing leads to another... and when Christian meets Rosanne he falls for her too.Out of all them, I think this one was probably my favorite, but it was frustrating too because of Frank.  He gets hurt because he truly does have feelings for Rose... but there is no happy ending for him.  Sure he was kind of oafish, but I hated how things turned out for him.  We get a hint that he MIGHT find happiness in the future, but I would have liked to have gotten a bit more than that. Still, Christian is delicious, Rosanne is delightful, and their storyline was perfectly fitted to the length of the story."When I Met My Duchess" was, again, ALMOST satisfying except that we didn't get to see the repercussions of the HEA!!! There's a TON of set-up about the strain between the family members within the Grey family, especially about Cleo who eloped and now owns her own trade as a wealthy and independent widow.  Her family treats her awful and while I enjoyed the scene where she finally gives them whatfor, the truth of the matter is that I wanted to see how they reacted when she got her HEA! If anyone needed a comeuppance it was her parents, especially after how shamefully they've treated Cleo, but even with the epilogue we never find out if they've apologized or come around or anything.  Be that as it may, Cleo and Gareth are wonderful characters and I loved the way their story turned out; they were both so easy to fall in love with.  I wouldn't have minded an entire book about them honestly - I think that out of all the novellas this was the only one that really should have been a book."How Angela Got Her Rogue Back"... well, if you like the time traveling storylines then you'll probably like this one.  I'm a bit prejudiced cuz I'm not a fan of those storylines.  This one is fairly well done as such things go.