Zebra, $7.99, ISBN 978-1-4201-4856-5
Historical Romance, 2020
Usually when an author’s works take a huge nosedive in quality after shifting to a new publisher, I will wonder just how much of the author’s previous efforts were also a result of the past editors’ due diligence. I’m certainly thinking about that when I read Sabrina Jeffries’s The Bachelor, because this one is very similar to the previous entry in the Duke Dynasty series: the heroine is shrill and unlikable, the hero is whiny and boorish, and they are both dumb beyond belief.
Gwyn Drake is being blackmailed by an ex over an unwise indiscretion in her past, so when this story opens, she marches at him with an unloaded pistol. When Lionel Malet threatens to inform her brother what they really did in the past, she immediately goes okay, okay, she’ll pay up. I hope the author doesn’t expect me to stand up and cheer for Gwyn here, because there is already enough disappointment caused by this baby.
Luckily, Joshua Wolfe, the gamekeeper, is nearby so once again, we have a man coming to rescue the romance heroine from the puddle of poo that she happily leaped head-first into. Her twin brother has him be her bodyguard when she embarks on her sexy Season in London, but Gwyn is aghast, because having a bodyguard will make it hard for her to keep making payments to her blackmailer in secret.
You want me to repeat that again?
Yes, Gwyn is the author’s kind of specialty: the heroine that continuously goes through bizarre contortions in ways that an ordinary human possibly can’t achieve, just to martyr herself for people that obviously don’t need and won’t benefit in any way from her martyrdom.
When the author was at Avon, such behavior was still tolerable, while the heroines are starting to show their inner banshee Karen during her time at Pocket. For her previous book and this one for Zebra, though, all gloves are off. Just like the heroine of that previous story, Gwyn here is very good at continuously scolding, nagging, badgering, and blaming other people for her problems. Her most “tender” moments are those of her seizing at straws to play the martyr. Throughout it all, she is abrasive through and through, with a big cherry of dumb dumb at the top of a huge pile of dingbat icing.
Joshua isn’t any better. He’s so determined that he’s unworthy of Gwyn that he pushes her away when he isn’t too horny, but then he gets horny and drags her back in while seething in jealousy at the thought of her with any other man. This is a familiar kind of hero if one had read enough of the author’s stuff in the past, but this time around, just like with Gwyn, our hero has very little appeal. He’s just a boor with anger and jealousy issues, someone that keeps saying he wants to get off the pot but just wouldn’t no matter what.
What makes The Bachelor fall into the one-oogie mire, though, is the way the whole thing is put together. So many scenes here are just bizarre.
For example, early on, Gwyn is arguing with her brother because he had just appointed Joshua as her bodyguard in London. Clearly, she isn’t happy. Then she gives Joshua a look and he wonders whether she’s hot for him. This leads to a perplexing internal monologue about many women had flirted with him in the past and…
What? Why would anyone, aside from a total conceited boor, would think that the heroine would be hot for him in that particular movement? Look at the context! She is taken aback by having a bodyguard thrust on her; I think most sane men would imagine that she is not getting all hot and heavy at that particular instance for a man.
Many scenes here are like this. Yes, they are grammatically correct words in sentences and paragraphs and all, but when placed one after another, things feel disjointed like they had been cobbled together by an AI or something.
The best thing I can say about this thing is that it’s actually pretty short for something marketed as a full length story, and I can’t even be mad at its length because I’m so glad when it’s over.
I don’t feel any ounce of feels for the romance or the couple. In fact, it’s a miserable experience, reading this, because the hero and especially the heroine are constantly grating on my nerves, like those nerves are assaulted by electric drills that can’t be switched off no matter what. Thank god it is over when it’s over.
