Review: Soooooo sloooooowwwwww . . . . .snooze
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 15, 2013
This book is nearly 500 pages in print, and you feel each one of them.  Rasley believes in saying the same things over and over and over and over again.  Every plot or character point is made 17 times.  The story itself is quite interesting, but Rasley is not a capable enough writer to handle the complexities she sets up.  The princess in the book is from Russia and she is being imported in 1811 to England to marry the Royal Duke of Cumberland, who comes across as at least partially mad and possibly a murderer.  Of course, the British officer (hardened veteran of the Peninsula Wars) who escorts Princess Tatiana to England wins her heart, and she seems to thaw his.  Rasley, however, is rather inept in showing how the Princess puts herself and the Major into mortal peril on a schooner, captained by the Major's boyhood friend (and possible half-brother) who is also a smuggler of artworks, and yada, yada, yada.  Both Wellington and his brother make appearances without much narrative effect.  Then, Rasley throws in a historical lesson on all the British kings, queens and others who have been beheaded.Rasley certainly tries hard, but she needs an editor to cut out about 50% of the book and to advise her where scenes need some beefing up.  In her case, more is not usually better.  In comparison, Georgette Heyer's books never seem to waste a word, a scene or a characterization.  You feel IN the scenes she describes.  Rasley's just not up to that level of expressiveness, wit, and insightfulness into human character and motivation.  But, at least she tries to present a wide panorama of the life and political history of the times.  If only she didn't make the same points over and over and over and over again.