16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting premise, horrible execution, February 17, 2010
I hate to be the first one to review this book and give it such a poor review. I decided to give this book a try based on the summary - the Earl of Whitmore wakes one day to realize that he has no memory of the last three months, including his marriage to childhood friend Emily. An interesting mystery; I was interested to see how this would pan out. The answer, unfortunately, was that it would pan out badly. From the beginning, Emily Chesterfield is wishy-washy, whiny, and unbearable. Even after the earl begins to regain some of his memories and begins to thaw towards her, she still is still unbearable, creating problems out of nothing. I dislike books where much of the conflict could be resolved, or avoided, if the characters merely listened to what the other was saying, and this book had these situations in spades.
Aside from my dislike of the heroine, I also had complaints with the writing itself. It is extremely stilted, consisting mainly of dialogue and awkward jumps from one scene to another. There is practically no background to the story and the reader is left to piece together almost everything based on the few casual mentions that the author gives. One thing that particularly stands out in my mind is Emily's constant talk of the children. Whose children? It took me at least three chapters to figure out to whom they belonged as there certainly had been no mention of it the first time they were spoken of. That the author had to write a prequel to the novel as a novella is a testament to the shoddy plotting and writing of this novel. There are also many grammatical mistakes and mistakes with punctuation - I wonder if there was an editor for this novel, and if there was, he or she certainly did not do their job very well.
My last complaint is with historical inaccuracy. I know that when reading historical romance, I should not expect great sweeping chapters about the historical background. However, aside from a few mentions of corsets and lords, this novel could have been set in the present day. What is worse is that when the author does try to include something historical, namely about clothing, it is grossly inaccurate. The numerous mentions of Emily's thin clothing grated on my nerves because a simply trip to even Wikipedia would have revealed that women wore layers and layers of clothing during the time period in which this novel was set. Also annoying was the use of recipes from Emily's recipe book as chapter headers. This was a very cute premise, I will say. However, the way that the recipes were written, primarily using cups and teaspoons, is not accurate to how they were written during the 1850s. It is especially frustrating because, had the author simply taken the five minutes to use Google to find Victoria recipes, she could have avoided such mistakes.
I thought of giving this book two or three stars because it did indeed have an interesting premise and an ending that was not bad. However, it seems to me that the author squandered such an interesting idea for all of the aforementioned reasons, and therefore I gave it only one star.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ä good mystery, February 19, 2010
Unlike one previous review, I found this book to be a good mystery with a little romance and sex mixed in -- but very little really. OK, I'm a man who does not normally read romance novels. I realize they are not written primarily for men. But I am a reader of Michelle Willingham, and of the books by her that I have read, this was by far my favorite.
The writer of the one negative review is right about one thing: Many of Emily Chesterfield's worries would be solved if she would just have an honest conversation with her husband, and I also get frustrated when she acts so stupidly. But that seems to be typical for characters in these types of books.
I was far more interested in the mystery than in the romance. That's primarily why I kept reading. I wanted to learn what exactly was going on and how it was going to be resolved. The book also takes place in 19th century England which to me in a lot more interesting than 12th century Ireland where Willingham's previous books were set. With this book, I am convinced Willingham expanded her horizons and moved toward a genre that will appeal to readers onf non-romance novels.
JB
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing Love Story!, June 3, 2010
This book was an endearing love story wrapped up in a mystery. The two plots intertwine and create a very interesting story overall of a woman trapped in a bad situation that inevitably risks her life and the life of her new husband. The ending was far from predictable, which is a rarity for me, but the book leaves you wanting more of the wonderful characters and their stories in the end. The story has a prequel and a companion novel that continue some of the same style. I highly recommend all three.
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