A romance is a hero and heroine falling in love, not thinking the worst of each other at every opportunity.

A lot of romances go for the big misunderstanding, but the author piles them on and never lets up, and as a result, the characters suffer in the process.

Where is the excitement of getting to really know each other intimately? That is different from the love scenes in the book, which were okay but again, misplaced given how lacking in harmony the couple is throughout the book.

This is a fairly quick read if you are willing to go happily along with where the author wants to take you, but I personally got bored and annoyed with them both after a while and one good heart to heart would have resolved everything in 50 pages or less!

Not so sure they will have a happily ever after if their courtship is anything to go by!
Rating: 3 / 5

Flash forward almost five years, and now Verity is the unpaid & unloved drudge of her uncle’s household. They’ve even forced her to take a new name, supposedly to cover her “shame” in being the daughter of a man who committed suicide, but really, as revealed later in the book, so the family can assume the inheritance she’s been left by her estranged grandmother. Max comes to the uncle’s house to check on Verity.

This is where the book started going all wrong (for me). The hero, after initially being presented in a “heroic” fashion — helping the heroine, comforting her about her father’s death, & professing inwardly that he owes something to this girl because she’s the daughter of the man who saved his life — simply drops off the face of the earth. Lets FOUR years go by without a peep out of him? Doesn’t become suspicious when she doesn’t appear for a come-out in London, doesn’t ever write to the uncle making inquiries into Verity’s well-being? He makes all kind of fancy inward excuses for not doing so, but his behavior doesn’t make sense.

Worse, after physically catching hold of Verity while witnessing her struggle with her disreputable male cousin, Max is suddenly STRICKEN with lust for her. The author attempts to gloss over the lusting part by giving Max inward semi-doubtful thoughts: “never felt this way before — what are these new feelings for this girl?” but the constant harping on Max’s ACUTE physical discomfort, even during the briefest encounters with Verity, really weaken the unadmitted so-called “love” and make it all “lust”.

The hero’s weakness in looking out for the heroine initially, and his frankly lustful nature toward her, are not in the least attractive. I grant the book 2 stars for its heroine, who is a little more strongly drawn, and for the book’s first two chapters which show inventiveness (at least, until the hero’s re-introduction).

The book is also severely weakened by plot devices involving near-constant misunderstandings between the hero/heroine, which a few good conversations would clear up; they refuse to have these conversations. Instead, both suffer silently & inwardly throughout the whole book. I truly despise this type of misunderstanding between a hero & heroine. (Romance authors who use the device of not allowing their characters to TALK to each other should, in my opinion, be banned from writing romance. It’s been done to death. )

Overall, I became more & more detached from the story as I read, and more annoyed by its flaws than anything else.

Rating: 2 / 5