New Concepts Publishing, $3.50, ISBN 1-891020-62-5
Historical Romance, 1999
This is one of those books that I just couldn’t get myself involved in the story no matter how hard I tried. It’s just that watching the McDonald’s commercial with that ugly mutant clown with red lips is much more fun than straining my eyes to read this e-book. After the McDonald’s commercial is this really bad B-grade movie on cable that has Antonio Sabato Jr whipping off his shirt and running around in spandex shorts all the time (I didn’t really he has these really scrawny legs until now… great bum though).
Maybe it’s because the plot is so tired, it’s like watching the author flogging a dead horse. Juliana of Stanmore is a medieval widow who runs her father’s holdings for him while he runs off to fetch his new wife home. While he’s away, neighboring landlord Rhys Monteux comes a-calling, great quads and good looks and all, to settle a dispute about a land that is to be Juliana’s dowry for whatever next marriage she steps in. Rhys wants the land, Juliana wants the land, Rhys wants Juliana, Juliana wants Rhys and also a man who covets her as much as her land and she wonders if Rhys really wants her or the land… yawn.
Rhys doesn’t like women except for that Just One Thing they provide (too bad medieval times have no blow-up dolls, eh?) because we all know women are lying, frivolous, money-grubby creatures. Rhys doesn’t want to remarry because he knows a mother would teach his daughter to be frivolous, money-grubby, and a pathological liar. Idiot. He believes it’s okay not to remarry and get an heir – his daughter would inherit, right? Silly man. Can a woman inherit her father’s lands at this medieval time period? Like I said, this man’s rather lacking in the intelligence department.
Juliana wants no man but gets all a-shiver-me-timbers with Rhys and thinks he’s a scum because he can get her hormones all fired-up for a celestial chorus. Ninny. She refuses to obey any man and does stupid things. She’s actually puzzled when her new stepmother comes over and takes over the management of the lands. Why? she cried in anger. That’s because she’s higher up the hierarchy, dummy. And she’s also the classic bimbo heroine, running around dark deserted hallways alone when a killer’s out to get her, and she’s completely blind to the fact that her obnoxious, disgusting, malicious, and downright horrid brother hates her guts and wants her dead (she loves him, you see… yawn). When Rhys admires Juliana’s brains and strength, I wonder if he had been sneaking around the ale barrel one too often. Then again, considering his state of brainy-hood, I shouldn’t wonder.
Two uninteresting characters, a dull as dishwater plot, and there’s no interesting mystery or suspense. Sigh.
