Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Am I supposed to LIKE these people?, February 19, 2004
This review is from: No Ordinary Groom (Mass Market Paperback)
I really wanted to like this book. I love the whole 'Scarlet Pimpernel' story, and thought it was a great plot device. But these characters are all over the board. First of all, I wish authors would get past the junior high idea of love - you know, if you really like someone, insult them, or make them angry, or pretend you can't stand them. I know it's harder to write books where the tension is intelligent, but that's what I spend my money for - characters who make you fall in love with them and who make you understand why they fall in love with each other. I do not buy books to read about young women who I am 'told' are intelligent, but who act like idiots, or men who enjoy irritating the woman they care about. It's possible I'm being somewhat unfair to this book, because I could only make it to page 176 before I skipped to the ending and then threw it down it disgust, but I've been reading romances for a long time, and I'm getting tired of some of the best authors turning in sloppy efforts they figure will sell just because their previous works have been so good.
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Was a good read!!, March 7, 2004
This review is from: No Ordinary Groom (Mass Market Paperback)
This was my first, Gayle Callen book, and with this book, I will be on the look out, for all her books. In addition, buy her older writings. I will definitely buy the next book, about Nick and Charlotte, this fall. For some reason, I see the next book being five stars. This book, No Ordinary Groom, was very romantic, very sweet, and I like how the pages are not full of raw sex, and has a story to read. The sex was not so over bearing..That you need to skip pages, which is what I usually do if a book goes on and on about it. A salute to you Ms Gayle Callen, will done.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A cut above the ordinary, November 19, 2006
This review is from: No Ordinary Groom (Mass Market Paperback)
A toe-curlingly cheesy cover on this book wasn't encouraging, neither was the blurb on the back including such memorable phrases as "does his heated gaze enflame a desire in her" but this book was actually rather a pleasant surprise.
Jane Whittington is a dutiful daughter of separated parents. Her father has arranged a match for her with Lord William Chadwick to which she agrees but with significant reservations. Lord William, although reasonably attractive, is a brainless fop and Jane herself is well-read and intelligent. However, she obeys her parents' wishes in her betrothal (a point that is necessary for the plot but was a little bit unrealistic as the novel moves on and we find out more about Jane's independent nature).
Of course things aren't as they seem (when are they ever?) Will is a former spy who has taken on the mantle of his last disguise - the English nobleman fop - as he doesn't really know who he is any more. However he finds himself embroiled in another mission to catch red-handed a traitor to England who just happens to be at a house party he can also visit.
Will manages to whisk Jane away on a visit to her father in Yorkshire and is able to divest her of her maid on the way. He then seems to spend rather a lot of time trying to shock her and seduce her whilst protecting her from potential enemies that may be following him. Their interactions are well written as Jane gradually realises that there's more to William than the brainless dandy and also begins to understand herself and her longing for excitement, adventure and her horror of being controlled by a husband.
The spy plot part of the book is pretty minor really - we meet a couple of other people in it and there's another book about one of the spies already written - and in fact I didn't think the plot worked too well. However the rest of the book was definitely more interesting than a lot of other Regency romances that I have read recently. Strong characterisation is surprisingly difficult to find in this genre and I felt that this book bucked the trend. Worth a read!
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