Review: Downhill, All The Way
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 04 5, 2014
I've never lost faith in a writer this way before.I've always thought of Ms. Worrall as a top-notch writer. But, in the space of less than two weeks, I have come to doubt my judgment.I couldn't even finish this book, though I skipped ahead and scanned just to see if all my assumptions turned out to be right. Sadly, they were.This is a story of two men, Ash and Kaleb, who meet after Ash's sister's death. They hate each other, and Ash has good reason to: Kaleb is one of the most obnoxious and intrusive characters I've ever come across. He, tastelessly and intentionally, throws Ash's grief in his face, calling him names - even at the reading of Ash's sister's will.And there's the twist. I'm loath to disclose spoilers, but this one comes so early in the book, I'm sure no one will be particularly surprised: Ash's sister had an infant daughter Ash didn't know about, and she bequeathed her to both of these boys - an obvious attempt to play matchmaker from the grave.All the rest of the book is so predictable, including hate turning to insta-love... well, if you read M/M Romance, you can guess what happens next - and you'd likely be right.But that isn't what bothered me most about this book - I tend to run across an awful lot of predictable, banal, and barely-believable plots in this genre - it was the poor writing.I know that Ms. Worrall is British, which is fine. My favorite books of hers are the ones where she doesn't struggle so obviously for "an American voice" - and fail.But the one thing I've discovered over the last two or three books of hers that I've read is that Ms. Worrall is either a lazy or incompetent researcher. That being the case, she should not write about things and places she doesn't know, or find an editor to correct her gaffes.1) Cowboys in Mississippi? What, wannabes? Missed by about 800 miles, Ms. Worrall.2) Several references to Sat/Nav in the car. No such expression this side of the pond. We call that, simply "GPS".or "GPS Navigation", but never Sat/Nav.3) Her attempts at down-home Southern "talkin'" are pathetic and, at times, unintelligible. What the heck does this mean: "It was hot as a whorehouse on nickel"? Is that, as opposed to dime or quarter, or as in the element "ni"? To be honest, I don't have a clue what she intended, but there are quite a few barely-intelligible sentences and fragments in this book, almost always when she tries to add "local color", for which she has no ear, whatsoever.4) "Bacon sandwiches" The closest we get to that in the U. S. is the "BLT". But bacon sandwiches are a particularly British food, and it's probably only eaten by ex-pats in the U. S. Most Americans would turn up their noses at even thought of a bacon sandwich.5) It's odd, but the sex scenes in the last five Worrall books I read seem to be the same one, repeated endlessly with the names changed.6) Same for description. Ms. Worrall, does every one of your heroes really need to have "the longest eyelashes I've ever seen"?I won't go on, because, to be honest, I'm sounding a bit harsh and vindictive at this point. I just hate it when my idols end up having feet of clay.You may enjoy this book a lot more than I did - it does have some relatively interesting (though ridiculously corny) plot twists. But that couldn't get me past two characters I didn't much like and enough bad writing/editing to throw me off completely.