Review: Done With This Author
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 07 22, 2014
"Jackal" is slightly better than "His Saving Grace" but only a little and not enough to take it to three stars.  The hero in this book is better drawn and developed and more complex.  He is well into his thirties and rather world weary.  The heroine is almost thirty and still stamps her little foot, yells at the slightest provocation and has temper tantrums any time she doesn't get her way.  This hero deserved a better heroine.  The old lady was extraneous, annoying and a complete caricature.  Actually, most of Gray's characters are.  Same problem as the previous book:  21st century dialogue and behavior in a book set in the 19th century upper class.  By the time I got half way through I promised myself that if any character said "whatever!" I would stop reading immediately.  Fortunately the author didn't go quite that far but close.  She also attempted to bring a little bit of period dialogue into her writing - there are a few "anon's" thrown in there - but I think she missed her mark by a couple of centuries.  The climactic confrontation is actually pretty well done though you have known for quite some time the identity of the villain (not on purpose - the author just couldn't do a thorough enough job of hiding him.)  That's not a good enough reason to subject yourself to this.