Liquid Silver Books, $4.25, ISBN 1-59578-249-4
Fantasy Romance, 2006
Loving Fate follows Tempting Fate and it is part of Emma Sinclair’s trilogy of the three Fates of Greek mythology finding love. This one is Lachesis “Lacy” Moirae’s story.
Unfortunately, in this story Lacy is exactly that kind of heroine who never fails to get on my nerves: her job is to determine the fate of the person whose thread Clotho has spun but she will spend her time wailing about guilt and what-not because she has to make a baby die after being kidnapped. Now, that’s a terrible thing to happen to anyone, but come on, it’s a dirty job and someone has to do it. If Lacy can’t take it, then she should quit, right? Let Zeus know that she’s not up to the task and threaten to turn the entire human population into an everlasting party of happy immortal Care Bears if he doesn’t assign someone else to take over from her, perhaps? But no, I guess she has to stay put and make a grand show about what a magnificent martyr she is.
Noah Monroe is the father of that baby girl in question, Sarah. Since he learns of Sarah’s death, he hasn’t stopped grieving. Every night, he is visited by who he believes to be an angel. This angel will let him know that Sarah is happy at the other side, that kind of thing. I should be more sympathetic to this man, I know, but I am already so annoyed by Lacy that I’m afraid my annoyance spills over onto him. Especially when Lacy is already using her visits to him as an excuse to whine about how she’ll never have a baby because she will never have a relationship like that between her sister Chloe and her husband Tanner. Why does she feel that she can never have such a relationship when heaven knows her sister already went and snagged herself a husband in the previous book? I have no idea but I suspect that it’s because Lacy is one big martyr, that’s why.
Noah is a sympathetic hero but OH MY GOD, Lacy really needs to die. This woman is completely hopeless. She’s like a Jo Beverley heroine gone berserk. Even when Noah tells her that he loves her, she’s already planning to drive him away. The thing is, I have no idea why she feels that she is so unlovable. It must be that “My job sucks!” thing of hers. Many of the sex scenes in this story are gratuitous and take up space that can be used for badly-needed character development. Because the characters are one-note, Lacy is singularly irritating as that creature determined to be unhappy for no good reason. It gets to the point where it’s as if Loving Fate in Lacy’s case is to put her down as an act of mercy because she’s really that pathetic.
