Review: Very good writing style wasted on very bad plot and characters.
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 01 4, 2014
When I read Darcy's first effort,A Gentleman and a Scoundrel (The Regency Gentlemen Series), I thought she showed a great deal of promise and skill as a new Regency romance author and gave her a pass about some annoying issues with the main characters.Unfortunately, this third effort, which followsThe Bluestocking and the Rake (The Regency Gentlemen Series), makes me feel that I was backing the wrong horse, so to speak, in the up-and-coming-author race.  I had to speed-read the last two thirds of this, it was that annoying.  Dialogue style was very good but the words coming out of the characters' mouths were so exasperating and annoying I ended up wishing the H and h to perdition.Supposedly they are attracted to and even love each other, but every word out of their mouths is antagonistic, down-putting and disagreeable.  The Failures to Communicate and Misunderstandings go on and on and on until the last 6% or so of the story, the heroine has huge TSTL moments, and the H and h's cold and erratic treatment of each other was unbearable to read. Because of this, the story felt twice as long as usual for a HR.So what's good about this?  As I said before, the writing style is good and the dialogue flows well.  If only the author had used her skills to write a good book with reasonable characters.