Joanne Austen Brown, $0.99, ISBN 979-8215163528
Historical Romance, 2020 (Reissue)

Joanne Austen Brown’s A Patridge in His Family Tree was previously published as part of some digital box set or anthology, and it’s now sold as a separate thing. I’m also half-convinced that the title would be some kind of double entendre had this been a man-on-man romance, which it isn’t.

Basically, roguish Jason Daniel Baird wants a wife—a sensible woman with emotional maturity and high intellect.

The fact that his mother is pressing him to get married to a woman with respectable pedigree, to make up for his own disreputable rakish past and that the woman he has in his mind is his first ever crush only push this plot arc further.

However, Dianna Mariah Patridge is busy being a successful business manager, however, and she has no time for handsome rakes and whatever fun they drag in along with them. So there!

This is a traditional regency romance, with the highs and lows that come with that particular genre.

On one hand, the story is readable and the easy to digest. Well, and… the cover is nice, I guess.

However, this story bores me silly. Pretty much the entire story is made up of people attending parties and teas, and all they do is talk and talk and talk. There is hardly any internal monologues, because everything needs to be blabbed out over cakes and tea cups.

When the highlight of the “romance” is a kiss that is then talked about and dissected like it’s the most passionate shag ever, I can only roll up my eyes and wonder whether these characters are as starchy as their bloomers.

I know, I know, traditional regency romances tend to be like this… but come on, surely there could be vivid depictions of longing and passion? Here, the romance feels so flat because everyone just talks about it instead of feeling it, if I am making sense here.

It doesn’t help that the main characters think and feel more like teenagers instead of adults. Jason’s angst that kicks off his career as a rake is his hurt over Dianna not wanting to marry him… when they were both fourteen. He carries this hurt for him for the next fourteen years.

I mean… really? Who is the target audience for this thing, as the only people most likely to take this “angst” seriously are fellow fourteen-year old kids?

If anything, this weird angle only gives me the impression that being a rake here means running around indiscriminately holding women’s hands, because the whole thing just feels childish.

Oh well, I suppose I should give this one three oogies for its technical proficiency, but for the most part, I find it too much of a dull and silly read. Two oogies it is, then.