Zebra, $5.99, ISBN 0-8217-6799-2
Historical Romance, 2001

More Than You Wished is the sequel to More Than You Know. It is also a better book in that I only feel the urge to strangle the heroine only once or twice. Maybe thrice. Five times tops. The heroine is Bria, the martyr sister of the hero in More Than You Know.

Bria Hamilton has a plan to get back the lands from her stepfather Orrin. She will hire Lucas Kincaid to help her rebuild the Concord Plantations despite her reservations that he is Yankee and she is a southern genteel lady. The scars of the War between the States still haven’t heal yet. They end up marrying – for convenience, of course – and people start trying to kill Bria or Luke or maybe the both of them.

Bria is the type of heroine who has no life other than to make love to her plantations. Quite sad when I think of it – how about taking up reading, Bria? – but hey, if she’s happy, I’m all for it. Luke is a typical walking wounded hero. Nothing new here, nothing new in the story either. But that’s okay.

What’s not okay is the unforgivable abuse of point of views. For the first ten pages alone, point of views switch from Luke and Bria as they square off in a room every few paragraphs, interrupted by a dialogue. First Luke thinks and ponders, says something, and then we’re now in Bria’s head. Until she says something and woosh, I’m in Luke’s head once more. Than he speaks and eeek, I need the Dramamine now. From ten pages, extrapolate that to 409 pages and you get one very seasick reader gasping for breath. Sure, I can take it slow and read this one bit by bit – which I did – but the rather standard story within doesn’t warrant such extra effort on my part.