Review: Not a romance...
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 12 28, 2011
If you're looking for a romance novel, I highly recommend you look elsewhere.This book is based in 1661 and is built on a highly religious backbone. I both understand and acknowledge that religion played a very large part in societies of those times (Clarendon Code/ Corporation Act of 1661 and all that)... however, instead of smoothly writing in religious undertones that would compliment the storyline and steer the plot along, the author may as well have shoved a bible down your throat with a side helping of hellfire and damnation.Anna is 19 years old - her father was the vicar of their village but has recently passed away, leaving her alone with her ailing mother. In every description of Anna, we're told that she's this beautiful innocent - sweet, giving, extremely pious, and willing to work hard to take care of her mother. Which is why she immediately takes a position as governess that the [not to be trusted] Squire offers her. The very first night Anna spends in the house she's almost raped by the Squire. The very first night. Oh, and she bludgeons him upside the head with a candlestick, runs home to her mother sobbing, then both of them have to flee for their lives.Okay... I get that the author was trying to kick-start some conflict, but really? It's 1661 and Anna is 19 - she'd have been fair game for years! All of a sudden her father dies and she's more accessible? Where was her father keeping this stunning yet innocent beauty, a closet?Soon we have two more men to add to Anna's list of lustful stalkers. Despite the fact that she's dressed in the black mourning garb of a borderline peasant, apparently she still looks like sex on a stick... or the entire male cast of this novel are wearing beer goggles. I can't help but think of the movie "There's Something About Mary" - you know... maybe There's Something About Anna. Except that we don't really know what that "something" is...ever.But I digress...I really don't have the energy to list everything that's wrong with this story - there's simply too many historical flaws, plot holes, timeline blunders, convenient occurrences, spelling/grammar errors, character inconsistencies, ragged transitions, and flavorless attempts at "romance". Top off an entire book of obsessive, maniacal, gloom and doom with a ridiculously simple (and utterly convenient) happy wrap up, and there you have it. Voila!***Spoilers***Here are a few points that really annoyed me (among many):- Highly religious Anna who can't seem to stop spouting religious teachings for longer than it takes her to gulp in her next breath... feels perfectly fine with having sex before marriage.  Um, no.- Every single solitary message that Ravensbourne sends to Anna and his sister while he's in hiding get either confiscated or lost - and when he sends his buddy Daventry with a message, that doesn't get through either. Oh, but Daventry was not only able to speak with Ravensbourne's servants, but also talked to people in town enough to find out that everyone thought Ravensbourne was dead, Charlotte was whipped into marrying a friend of Melcotts, Anna's mother was dead and Anna was to marry Melcott.  Ridiculousness.- Melcott and the Squire were able to hear and see everything that went on in the Dower house while simultaneously talking and masturbating outside the window... and yet, no one heard them? Gee, how utterly convenient. And how on earth would Ravensbourne know what the Squire looked like, huh? Yeah... he wouldn't.- A thousand pounds to marry Charlotte? Um, no.- When exactly in the year did everything take place? How many months went by? The book starts off with a "chill wind", there's talk of growing crops to eat (like potatoes), but then mentioning the "first snowfall", and then Ravensbourne mentions being in the Netherlands for months, next scene Anna says he's been gone weeks.... what the heck is going on? Throw the name of a month in there for pity's sake. Sheesh.- Anna getting married to Melcott when she's in mourning for her mother (and probably still in mourning for her father)? Um, no.- Ravensbourne taking in some random, filthy girl that runs up to him looking for help? In these times, with poverty absolutely rampant? Um, no.