Review: Author needs "Grammar for Dummies"
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 12 15, 2012
Some of the characters were okay, the subplots were dizzying and went off in fits and starts into wild tangents. The author used twentieth century slang, completely out of place in her chosen time period. The supporting characters had a half explained personality and history, only to get forgotten in the author's fits and starts in the main plot.What really, really, really bothered me, is that minus the sexual descriptions, which were completely unrealistic anyway, the author's writing ability would come right in at middle school level, according to those infernal yearly standardized tests.Based solely on her writing, the author has very little experience with proper punctuation, verb tenses or pronoun agreement; or any other understanding of the written part of the English language. Run-on sentences, sentence fragments, atrocious spelling and too many other things to list, kept me from enjoying the actual story, that held a lot of promise.Ma'am, if you relied heavily on a spell check or editing software, do yourself a favor and shoot it.Lastly, it was very obvious the author did not conduct any first hand research into the Regency era.  Wayyyyy too many mistakes regarding ranks, titles, the Prince Regent and anything really having to do with that time period. The only thing she did get correct was the publication date of Sense and Sensibility.Last bit of constructive criticism, if a man was as constantly and violently aroused as the Duke is purported to be, he would die from lack of blood to his brain and beyond that, he would not be able to pee. I won't get into any of the other medical fallacies, but encourage the author to friend Julia Quinn on Facebook, as her husband is a doctor and she is a first rate author. Eloisa James would be a great person to learn from, for literature and she is a wonderful writer.To save the nicest for last, the plot can be thrashed out and made more believable, it is already interesting. The supporting cast was more engaging and interesting than Thomas or Emma. It was frustrating that just as we saw glimpses of them, the heavy handed plot veered back to the main protagonists.Join Romance Writer's of America, take part in the writing workshops, learn from the best and within a few years I will happily give a four or five star rating.Good luck with writing the stories of the other Seabrook siblings, as well as the Duke 's two best friend's, I hope.All in all, I would read more of your books, if I could do so without snorting in frustration, lecturing my husband and children about blatant butchering the English language.