Brook Ridge Press, $2.99, ISBN 978-1370700103
Historical Romance, 2017
The plot synopsis of Amanda Mariel’s Earl of Grayson doesn’t give any indication of what exactly the plot I will be getting within the pages, so once again, I am letting my feels about the cover art guide me in deciding whether or not to place the book into the shopping cart. What is the guy looking at, though? His expression makes it seem like he has let out a blistering stink bomb and he hopes that nobody is close enough to have heard and smelled his handiwork.
Alright, having reading it, I can now share that the story is one of those things that make sense only this kind of romances. Look up Natalie Imbruglia’s Fun on YouTube and let it play as we go through this, because that kind of song fits the mood perfectly: I feel like sighing but I’ll try to act like everything is fine instead, and people, this is so much fun. Sigh.
The earl in the the title is Peter Killrabbit. Kidding, kidding, we can’t have that kind of name in our romances. No, his name is a more predictable Damien Archer. He always has had a crush on Charlotte Lawson since forever, but because she is a pure and unsoiled lady while he has decided that he will never marry, he will just slap his hands and other parts of his body against the derrieres of less respectable women instead. Meanwhile, Charlotte has always pined after him since forever, but because he’s a rogue and what not, she now blames him for somehow not letting her open her heart and other organs of her body to a more amenable gentleman.
So, in this story, she demands that he teaches her how to sexily sexy up her sexy ways so that she can emerge as a secretly sexy sexy-mexy like a sexy butterfly sexily emerging from a cocoon. I don’t know why these women wouldn’t just ask some sexy lady around town for tips instead, as I’d imagine tips from such a person would be more practical than those given from a cliché like the hero. Has the author run out of ideas to get the heroine to throw herself onto the hero?
The rest of the story unfolds exactly like how every story with this plot and these characters to unfold and…
You know what? Yes, this story is easy to read and short enough to avoid outstaying its welcome, but I’ve read this story way too many times already. This one doesn’t have anything interesting about it to stand out from the rest of those stories with similar plot and characters.
In the end, this one is well put-together and readable enough to qualify as a perfectly acceptable three-oogie read, but my god, it’s like eating the same dish for the hundredth time in a row. There are moments when I feel like I just need to put the story down for a while to give myself a more interesting break from reading. I’m just not having fun, and that’s quite the deal breaker for me.
