Lily Silver, $0.99, ISBN 978-1501455780
Historical Romance, 2013
It’s just two days away from Christmas, and companion Chloe Ramirez is assisting with her boss Lady Elizabeth Beumont’s preparations for the Christmas Eve party.
This is somewhere in the West Indies, by the way, and Chloe isn’t familiar with the English traditions of the festivities. Imagine her surprise when her boss tells her that those strange English folks would hang “kissing balls” over the doorway, and these balls will compel one’s true love to come forward and make their intentions known.
Our heroine is 500% certain that Gareth O’Donovan is her true love.
I love how our heroine immediately assumes that her true love will be the hottest guy in the room. Yes, she knows very well that she’s the child of a slave and a white man, which makes her a social pariah, but she’s confident that a man like Gareth is already in love with her. I suppose we can’t blame a gal for aiming high.
Because this is a romance story, however, hot attracts hot. Alas, Gareth is determined to not marry her.
“I am Richard O’Donovan’s son. I cannot ask you to take my name. It is the name of your enemy. My father sent you to the slave quarters when your father died. He could have taken you in as his ward or he could have contacted your father’s family in Spain. Instead, he tossed you into captivity like a heartless knave and for that, I cannot forgive him. Nor, can I ask you to take my name—his name—as your own.”
He declares that they can only be together in secret.
Normally, any sane person would come to the reasonable conclusion that he just wants to have fun with Chloe without paying the piper, but the author assures me that the hero is saying all this because it’s… er, for a noble cause?
“No.” Gareth said quickly and with rare venom. “My father kept women imprisoned against their will, and he used them ill and allowed other men to do so with him. My mother was one of his captives.” Gareth paused, and the fury in his voice was not lost on her. His hand released her wrist and then coiled into a fist. His body became rigid, as did his full lips. “I am a gentleman. You are dear to me, Chloe Ramirez. I would not have you share the tainted name I bear. My sister ran away because of our father’s perfidy. At sixteen, she ran away from home to escape the scandal of the O’Donovan legacy.”
How sweet, snort.
“Will you come to me tonight, my sweet?” Gareth whispered low in her ear as they stood in the parlor together, near the open window.
Seriously? What the hell? That guy that can sod off.
Instead of telling him to then take a hike and she’d look for someone that is willing to give her his last name, our heroine is persistent. She will make him marry her!
So, she makes her own “Christmas ball”, and for good measure, adds some voodoo magic to make it work more effectively.
Is the author even aware of what she is doing here? The hero is happy to boink the heroine without putting the ring on it, and somehow I’m supposed to believe that he’s doing it for… her own good? Meanwhile, the heroine is going to use magic to brainwash the hero into proposing to her.
This is supposed to be the beginning of a love story?
The rest of the story plays out like a ghoulish comedy, The Christmas voodoo testicle works, but on other men, so yes, our heroine has brainwashed some innocent bystanders. and our hero gets this “no man can touch her” rage that is passed off as love, and there is plenty of cringe-generating abuse of quotes from William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to make me feel a great sense of loss that this one doesn’t lead to the double suicide of this macabre twosome.
Ultimately, this is a pretty disturbing tale of brainwashing and coercion played off for laughs, with the hero’s sordid intentions passed off as some kind of noble self-sacrifice on his part. Yes, it’s such a sacrifice, but not too much to keep his pants zipped, that’s for sure!
Sadly, the only thing this one proves is that the author has actually a poor grasp on how not romantic her story and her characters can appear.
