Customer Reviews

Outback Bachelor (Harlequin Romance)

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This is the second Margaret Way book I've read, and I still can't see what the big deal is. I know she's very successful, but her writing style is not one I enjoy. I wanted to check out some Australian authors this month, but this book was by the far the worst of the bunch.

I'd say about eighty percent of this book is description - not plot, just description of the Australian Outback. I ended up skimming much of it because it was so repetitive. Another ten or fifteen percent is introspection and exposition. That leaves only a few percent for the plot.

There is nothing realistic about this story. I actually went back to check more than once that the author was actually Australian, because the story felt like some sort of royal Outback fantasy complete with descriptions of Aboriginal culture that were more like American Indian culture than anything Australian. The characters spoke like upper class English people from a couple of centuries ago. And the descriptions of life on a cattle station were so romanticised they were ridiculous. These were not rough-around-the-edges Australian cattlemen. They didn't look like them or speak like them. They spent all their time swanning around their billion-dollar empire, complete with old English ladies with fancy titles and a bizarre upper class society. Everything about the characters and settings were the complete opposite of Australian society.

And don't get me started on the heroine. She was a bigger Mary Sue than every other Mary Sue I've ever read put together! She was the most beautiful, benevolent, intelligent, forgiving woman who has ever lived. It was such an old-style Mills and Boon/Harlequin romance I couldn't believe it was written in this day and age.

This was an appalling attempt at an Outback story, and I simply couldn't believe an Australian could produce a story that was this WRONG.

Check out Barbara Hannay for a decent category writer who focuses on the Australian Outback. And then go and track down Bronwyn Parry and Rachael Treasure for something with a bit more substance and drama.

I have been reading this author's books for twenty years or more, and I wouldn't miss a one. She makes me yearn to see the outback with her vivid descriptions of the scenery. The way she makes you comphrend the vastness of the land and the
lack of people per square mile, the need to know how to help yourself in times of need without waiting for outside help reminds one of the ruggedness of the American pioneers. This is what life is about, not the petty idleness of a few wealthy people. I enjoy Margaret Way's books immensely.