Avon, $7.99, ISBN 0-380-81480-3
Historical Romance, 2003 (Reissue)

It seems as if Johanna Lindsey has decided to give the Avon editors a perfect goodbye present for her unceremonious ditching by the publisher: a book of pure execrable worth. And as usual, they pass the bucket of poo to the readers and charge $7.99 for it – if you aren’t that much of a lollipop to pay for the hardcover edition in the first place.

Melissa MacGregor, the daughter/niece of what seems like every hero the author has written before, is a spineless dolt who accidentally marries her family’s enemy Lincoln Ross. He is the enemy because he has angered sixteen of Melissa’s uncles, these same uncles who chase off every suitor of Mel because they find these men not worthy. I wonder if this is a Highland thing. I wonder how many dead bodies they keep in the underground larder.

There isn’t much of a plot here as much as the author throwing as many inside jokes as she can to thrill her fans who have read most of her back list. There are many men behaving badly too – throwing punches and getting drunk seem to be the only way they can kick their brain cells into some semblance of minimal activity. Mel doesn’t know anything and wanders around the story like a train wreck searching for a clue. Lincoln, like all the men here, behave like overgrown ten-year-old brats that break things and shout rowdy things. In this case, love is a soccer game populated by hooligan fans.

I don’t enjoy this book at all. If it’s not a tedious series of unfunny anecdotes starring a cast of million superfluous secondary characters, it’s an overlong series of little spats and loud noises that could have been solved if they have spent ten minutes to just talk over things a little. The Pursuit may describe the id vacuum that is sucking this author in, and let’s just hope she finds some sort of new muse now that she’s at Pocket.