Jove, $7.99, ISBN 0-515-13225-X
Historical Romance, 2002
Is Catherine Coulter writing for an audience anymore? Pendragon is so insipid and forgettable that it could may as well be some itch the author has to scratch before moving on to better things. The characters are so lazily sketched, the plot is ridiculous, and the whole story is more akin to a Sherbrooke nostalgia group hug that I really regret that my part of the world doesn’t have a return-and-refund policy. I want my $7.99 back to spend on some Prozac.
The story is all about Meggie Sherbrooke, who is in love with this Jeremy Stanton-Grenville guy forever, but Jeremy, instead of waiting for her to grow breasts, go and get engaged to some other woman! How insensitive!
Instead of growing up, Meggie proceeds to marry Thomas Malcombe, who is a hero because he is Irish, and she goes to live at the man’s Irish version of the Castle From Hell. There lives a mother-in-law who makes it clear why “mother-in-law” is an anagram for “Woman Hitler”, some nutcases out to murder Meggie (oh get a life, villains), and a lecherous uncle who is a bit too fond of Meggie’s breasts for his own good. Maybe this isn’t Ireland, but some backwater farm where sheep and redneck jokes run wild.
Meggie is a complete brat, although towards the end she becomes almost human. On the other hand, Thomas is a complete tool. Both characters just don’t talk about things that are important, instead babbling on and on and on about cat racing and bosoms and other things Ms Coulter think I must be busting a rib laughing over. The plot just drags on and on, the villain becomes increasingly omnipotent as the evil plots against Meggie become more and more unbelievable, and finally, a denouement that is just so lame. I don’t think even revealing the villain as Lex Luther can save this story from being a waste of time.
The only thing mighty and amazing about Pendragon is the fact that the author actually charges this much for her bloated, lazy, self-indulgent writing. Look, the last I heard, we have vanity publishing for that sort of thing.
