Review: I hope Dr. Megere Cliff has a successful career a la the Horatio Hornblower series
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 9, 2012
Excerpted from my GoodReads review: If you don't read this as a romance but as historically-based alternate world fantasy it works well - I give it four stars then.I especially enjoyed the idea of a corporate family, with a contract going back hundreds of years, which still functions first and foremost as a family (although at the end the burden switched to corporation - but then again Megere's parents hadn't heard her uncle's newest scheme yet).For that matter the family interactions where the most fun  bit of the book - or should I say Megere's personal developments in general. This reminded me much more of the first Horatio Hornblower novel (although Sizemore actually does homage to Patrick O'Brien with Captain Copper and Dr. Swan) - we get all this personal development and there's a subdued love-story for her included which isn't half as dramatic as it was in the Gregory Peck movie.So basically I follow one woman along in her quest to be the best she can be and be able to make her own decisions. And just by chance and because of her wide circle of acquaintances she manages to also make two other girls in her family happy in love ^^.The author has managed to make me believe that Megere will be up to dealing with her problems (I especially liked that she had a love affair of her own in the book, even as the two people realised that their different view on life made them incompatible in the long run - and it WASN'T with any of the men she was looking at for possible marriage). This is a book about the heroine! And her family! - the love interests come second. I very much appreciate that because that focus is so rare.