Review: What the heck? Pranged?
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 01 27, 2014
Second Chance/Reunion Story – Marshall Hunter, army medic, can’t get Charlotte “Charlie” Lang out of his mind. They met at an ED in Honolulu and had a short fling. She returned to NZ – home to have their daughter. Just when she decided to give up looking for him, he found her.This is a good story spoiled by inattention to regional differences. I love reading stories from all over the world, however one of my pet peeves is the inner dialogue of hero/heroines that don’t match the region the supposedly live in. What American male is going to have this sentence as inner thoughts? “The pranged cars.” First, it isn’t a complete thought. Second, what American male would think, “pranged”? It is not in their lexicon. I don’t mind Brit, Aussie, Kiwi heroes and heroines having their own national/regional idiomatic speech/inner dialogue, but don’t try to pass it off as American. Either do sufficient research or stick to heroes and heroines that reflect your knowledge base. This issue reduces the believability of the story—and that is unfortunate. This is not directed solely at this particular author—in fact, if the editors of HM&B; books did a better job of communicating the need for believability to their authors this problem could go away.