Review: Train Wreck
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 07 21, 2014
This a very short book so I am not going to complain about the brevity of the character development.  I expect that in these short novels where the reader has to fill in much of the back story themselves to keep the story brief.  What I am going to complain about is the complete lack of period authenticity.  The hero is mad because he thinks the heroine trapped him into marriage so he goes away until the wedding, spending his time arranging to go to war as soon as they are married.  He is going to bury her in some moldering estate on the Scottish border and disappear.  There was an opportunity for an interesting story here but let me tell you about when the hero decides he has been a jerk while on the way to the moldering estate:  "I've been a heel."  "You can say that again." "Will you forgive me?" "Did that ages ago." "I was angry about what happened."  "You? Angry? Could have fooled me."  That is bad dialogue even for a modern story!  Anyway, the hero goes away, the heroine turns the estate into a summer camp, and the servants, the kids (she refers to them as "kids,") the vicar, just everyone loves her.  She is the daughter of an aristocrat.  Her husband is a young duke (surprise!) She is completely clueless about how she would be expected to behave even if her goal was to be nice.  I can only assume that she is rather dim if she never picked up on social cues during her 21 years.  Honestly the only reason I finished this was because it was so short and, like a train wreck, I couldn't take my eyes off it.