Liquid Silver Books, $5.75, ISBN 978-1-59578-664-7
Historical Romance, 2010
The cover art of Brenda Williamson’s A Pirate’s Mercy is quite accurate in its depiction of the hero, Ashton Sinclair – he really does have a mustache. Having said that, I don’t know if I can recommend this book solely on the novelty of the rare hero with facial hair.
It all begins in a ballroom. Our hero Ashton is determined to be a jerk. You can see him treat his mistress like dirt in the opening pages and speak to the heroine Mercy James with all the grace of a bull in heat shortly after. And yet, despite the fact that his words infuriate her during the encounter in a ballroom, Mercy insists that Ash has an “irresistible charm”. Mercy, determined to proof that her grandmother is wrong and that Mercy can attract a man, soon ends up going away the milk for free to Ash. This leads her to be abused and locked up by her enraged grandmother, not that Mercy minds because she puts the privacy to good use as she takes matters into her own hands while fantasizing about her Captain Ash.
Naturally, Mercy realizes that she’s knocked up. But she will never let the father know because she’d never “ruin his life” just as she will never abort the baby. Isn’t this sweet of her? The drama eventually continues as she and “Captain Sin” meet again on his ship, where he then plays that silly “I’m a jerk, you’re too good for me, but of course I’ll push you away after I’ve shagged you because I’m so noble like that!” song while everyone else, including a ghost, scampers around to assure Mercy and me that he’s really a good guy at heart. Because he has a penis, he gets to be the hero even if he behaves like a jerk, while his female counterpart, the mistress he dumped, gets humiliated.
This one reminds me of those old school seafaring romances where the heroine’s suffering is a sign of her love for him while his asshole antics are supposed to be in proportion to the size of his, er, great love for her. Both characters are too silly for words. I’d recommend this one only to fans of old school “ravish to cherish” romances.
