Ivy, $6.99, ISBN 0-345-43761-6
Historical Romance, 2002

Falcon’s Angel is a thought-free fantasy of a Walt Disney-style pirate romance. It is formulaic, uninteresting, and uninspired, and as a bonus, it insults my intelligence by stringing together all the pirate romance plot devices I can think of without trying to see if they make any sense.

Let’s see, how about a hero bent on vengeance? Will Falcon. Check.

Blue-blooded heroine lost at sea as a child and now Grams is looking for her desperately? Angel/Elizabeth. Check.

Angel now a pirate. Check.

Will captured by Angel’s crew. Check.

Angel defends Will’s life. Check. To add insult, her main impetus for wanting Will alive and even willing to be his wife to save him is because he’s cute and she wonders how he can be cut off his crew, et cetera. Dimwitted wench.

Angel, Pirate of the Wild Seas, has never kissed a man before. Check.

Angel, Pirate of the Wild Seas, has never killed anybody before. Check.

Angel, Pirate and Plunderer of the Wild Seas, doesn’t own her own jewelry. Check.

Angel goes back to England and realizes that she’s actually an heiress. Check.

Will, who doesn’t want to marry for anything but money, shags Angel but wants to marry the other woman Julia. Check. Now that Angel is an heiress, the whiny and self-absorbed hero gets the cake and eats it too. Check.

Angel = pirate = woman of nature = prances around in wet underwear but acts prissy and “innocent” like Britney Spears in her latest video. Check.

On the other hand, Julia is a surprisingly three-dimensional character, not a bitch, but a rational, mature woman who demonstrates more intelligence in her little toenail than Angel the Terrible Pirate and Will the Whiny, Petulant “Why Can’t My Life Be Perfect?” Brat have in their collective brains.

One last thing: me in comatose. Check.