Review: Other reviewers deducted stars for brevity, I gave one in gratitude
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 04 25, 2013
The premise of this 14th. c. historical romance hooked me at the outset, dropping me right into a confusing, really tense situation. (Liked that despite dreadful writing.) Turns out, that to have his beloved daughter well settled, a father takes desperate action to force a neighboring lord to marry her...and so, leaves her facing a furious man married to ransom his kidnapped sister back from his new father-in-law.Okay, so that is one sticky situation. In long or short form, I might've enjoyed this but I didn't. It deserves no stars but for the set up. And its brevity, which others complain about and I consider a kindness to readers.Overall, the characters were flat, their dialogue modern and slangy, their names absurd (Reese and Jayce? Um, it's England 1300's not Beverly Hills 90210) and worst, their decisions/actions didn't make sense. We're told that Reese (hero, not Witherspoon) had vowed to wed a wench of his own choosing because his father ended up married to a slattern (his own mother). But to get his sister back, he must marry Sis' abductor's daughter. Okay, so hero's angry.That makes sense. But the heroine's kind of blank, just confused by H's anger (Papa lied to her about the circumstances). Really? Her new husband never courted her, no haggling over a typical arranged marriage, he's marrying her out of the blue, clearly pissed off doing it and fakes the consummation. No red flags, missy?Why not give the conflict/story some plausibility? Or at least grant characters common sense? The obvious possibility of annulment doesn't come up immediately after sis is returned, when it would make sense. And I have no way to understand her decision to make the best of it rather than demand annulment herself. (What happens to papa doesn't preclude her option to leave.) In fact, whatever it is that motivates her or him to do what each does remains vague throughout. Her conversations with Reese's angry younger brother, Morse(!) would've made the conflict between H/h more understandable, if only they'd been between H and h. But no.Then there's the God-awful writing. (These are quoted from a couple consecutive chapters, starting at Ch. 12. The whole thing is short, so keep that in mind):"A numbness slowly crept through her body"..."The word exploded in her mind"..."Anticipation burned through her veins"...."Relief, gratitude and something akin to pride swept through her"..."her pride rose to soaring heights but was deflated by her conscience"..."[his] frigid anger chilled her pride and melted her confidence."And poor Reese "shook himself, and resolve sealed off the fracture she had created in the stone wall he had built around his heart" but after she reminds him that even a dangerous warhorse (Reese himself, by lame analogy) needs love, her "words pried the fracture open wider"...until "he felt that wash of affection overtake him and race through his veins, filling his very blood with the spirit of her being."Shortly after which, "her heart melted into a pool of contentment."Urp.The hystrionic, hyperbolic language didn't make the characters or story any more compelling, it just lowered my opinion of the author's 'style' of writing. Or should I say, the gut-churning over-blown writing violated my eyes and seized my brain, rioting between my very ears till I was stunned and feeling something akin to nausea. (The opening had much less of this garbage and was far more gripping.)Add to that, little sense of the historical period beyond a vaguely depicted scene at a joust and references to some costuming, and this came across as sloppy, superficial doodling. However, while I considered it a waste of time, others liked it. And it's free. So there you go. Zero stars but for its brevity, any longer and I'd've researched ways to deduct stars.