Avon, $5.99, ISBN 0-380-81524-9
Historical Romance, 2002
What happened to Linda Needham? Since her last few books, her heroines become more and more infantile, and the… the… CREATURE in The Bride Bed is ridiculous. If I have a sack of dynamites to dump into a pit and toss this book in and blow the whole sorry deal sky high, I will. Because I swear, if I have to read another page about our creature Lady Talia running around acting like an infantile vegetable, I will go medieval on some innocent bystander, and then it’ll be Linda Needham’s fault.
Heiress Lady Talia Banana Psychopathia Infantalia Diediedie of Moronville has escaped marriage in the past for five times. Like all medieval dingbats, she must surround herself with doddering old fools and useless youths instead of a battalion of able knights. Because she probably doesn’t like violence and she wants to provide senile idiots employment opportunities in the name of precious moments. She’s a puke bag that way.
When she is “rescued” from yet another unwanted marriage just in time, she slaps the knights that threaten her men, throws herself over their weapons, and hollers, “Release me this second, before I – I scream!” The rescuers are led by Alex, her guardian. He takes over her lands and all, and he will find her a hubby. But she doesn’t want a husband! She just wants… wants… ah!
Talia Banana Diediedie Youstupidtwit uses nice words like “mean” and “sad”. She displays no ability to think or even make rational decisions. She is all visceral impulsiveness. No violence! No meat! No ugly mean fatty husbands! And how does she know that her man is heroic? Because he rescues a bunny!
Somewhere out there, maybe there are people who go “Awwww!” over such heartwarming scenes of lil’ Honey Honey Goldilocks crying over mean sad things in her life and laughing over pink bunnies and pretty, pretty butterflies. Maybe somewhere out there there are people who laugh when our heroine prays to God yet again for (yet another) miracle to extricate her from a debacle caused yet again by her own thoughtlessness. And surely there are people who call heroines who rush headlong into acting, without thinking or even hesitating, controlled purely by emotions (“He’s a big mean guy… until he saves a bunny, and then he’s my hero forever!”) – maybe some people will call Talia Dieohjustdieplease “intelligent” the way Alex calls her.
There are special homes for people like Talia, and they are called nuthouses, not The Bride Bed. People like Talia in bride beds awaiting the deflowering of their lives make me want to go eat some bloody raw steak just to make me feel good about myself once again. Bring back the adult, intelligent heroines!
