Grade: C+

I don’t understand why the good people of London won’t just form some sort of coalition to ferret out the identity of Lady Whistledown, capture her, stick her in a burlap bag, and beat her with sticks. Isn’t a good amount of the rake population of the ton secret agents, anyway? There’s what– ten or fifteen secret agents mingling about in London at one time? They can’t find one lousy society lady writing these rags? Lady Whistledown is a menace! I don’t care who she is, she can’t just go around randomly accusing members of polite society with no evidence whatsoever! In some countries, people are buried up to their necks and have rocks thrown at their heads for much, much less.

Anyway, the framing story of this group of novellas is centered on the “theft” of Lady Neeley’s stupid bracelet. It’s kind of lame, I guess, but the good editors of Avon probably demanded a framing story to pull the novellas together… and this is the best that these supposed best-selling authors could come up with? Hmm.

The first story is by none other than Mistress Julia Quinn. It’s not a good story, but not a bad one, either. I’m just pissed that nothing happens. It’s about this girl named Tillie Howard, who is considered the “biggest catch of the Season” (unfortunately, this is not a BBW story, ‘cause that would have been awesome), and a soldier boy named Peter Thompson, an untitled gentleman with no money, no prospects, and nothing else going for him but his good looks. Old Pete knew Tillie’s dead brother in Waterloo and gave his word to Tillie’s brother that he would keep an eye on Tillie during the London Season. It’s basically one of those I-love-him-but-he’s-only-with- me-because-he-promised-my-brother- he’d-look-out-for-me deals and the author beats this premise to a bloody pulp and leaves it broken and gasping for breath on the ground. When Lady Neeley’s stupid bracelet goes missing, Lady Whistledown does not accuse Peter of the theft (although she just haphazardly starts naming other people like she doesn’t give a shit), but she does, however, call him a fortune-hunter! Good one, Lady Whistledown! This, of course, throws Peter into a tizzy, saying he can’t marry Tillie because people will think he’s after her for her money, and that he’s not good enough for her. Yada-yada-yada. Peter is actually the more milksoppy crybaby one of this twosome. Yawn.

The second novella is by Mia Ryan and while reading it, I was sure this throbbing vein right behind my left eye was going to burst and I was going to be blind. The blurb on the back cover describes the heroine as “free-spirited” and I knew right then that she was either going to be mentally-retarded or one of those TSTL morons who want to prove that they’re wild and daring, so they get into these preposterous WTF situations that forces the hero to save the dumbasses from themselves. Arming myself with a bottle of vodka, I plunged into the story, read about three pages, and had to restrain myself from chucking the book across the room. The. Heroine. Is. A. Giggling. Moron. At everything the hero does or says, she laughs and laughs LIKE A FUCKING LOON. At first I thought she was just nervous or something, but no. Mia Ryan says she is free-spirited and this author shows this by writing the heroine as an idiot with an IQ of maybe… 30 and having her jump around and giggle like a fool. LIKE A FOOL. Oh, by the way, this nitwit is Lady Neeley’s companion and her characterization is completely at odds with the way Julia Quinn writes her in the first novella. That character was kind of gawky, awkward, and quiet, but this freakshow has the tendency to run up to the hero in the middle of ballrooms and babble like an idiot, and doesn’t at all resemble the character from the first story. You’d think the writers would have sat down and discussed shit like this, but no. The hero, on the other hand, is a stock rake character whose father wants nothing more than to get him married off to anyone, ANYONE, even a complete dingbat, I guess. Oh, and the heroine has never been kissed in her entire life, and she just turned 30. I can’t talk about this story, anymore. Every second I spend discussing this story, I die a little bit inside.

The Best of Both Worlds by Suzanne Enoch tells the story of a prim and proper miss named Charlotte Birling and one of those rake types that come a dime a dozen and I think comes free with a happy meal. There’s nothing special at all about these two. The heroine Charlotte, however, has parents that make the parents from The People Under the Stairs look like Ward and June Cleaver. Seriously, these people are fucking crazy. The reason for this is their niece Sophia (whose story is the fourth novella) who marries a jerk who leaves her almost immediately after the wedding because he was accused to be cheating at cards, so he flees, and causes a huge scandal. Anyway, these nutcases are afraid that another scandal would make their daughter Charlotte unmarriageable, so they raise her to be broom-in-the-ass proper and shoves her towards a creepy, boring jerk whom you just know masturbates in his feces in the dark holding a picture of his dead grandmother, while wearing his sister’s debut dress. They are so afraid that Charlotte would cause a scandal that when the hero, who is a VERY RICH EARL, declares his intentions to court her and starts coming around, they would tell the hero that Charlotte is sick or out with her friends. The odd thing is, they just don’t think that Charlotte is good enough or pretty enough for the earl, and that is the reason why they discourage this courtship. That is fucked up, dude, seriously. It’s one thing to be paranoid about scandals, but to turn away a perfectly good suitor because you don’t think your daughter is good enough for him? That’s some bullshit. It just makes it seem like Suzanne Enoch was just looking for a way–any way– to keep the hero and heroine apart and to increase her word count. Reading this story, I also got the uneasy feeling that the only reason this earl is chasing after Charlotte is because she’s unattainable and would dump her ass after he gets tired of her. I can’t imagine this relationship lasting more than six months, dude.

Last, but not the least is The Only One for Me by Karen Hawkins, and the only story in this anthology that didn’t make me want to stick my head in the toilet and flush repeatedly. This novella (like I mentioned in the above paragraph) is about a woman named Sophia whose husband abandons her to avoid some bullshit scandal about him cheating at cards. The hero, Viscount Easterly, is the main suspect in the thievery of Lady Neeley’s bracelet (who even gives a shit at this point), and Lady fucking Whistledown practically crucifies this poor man in her rags. Anyway, it turns out that he wasn’t the one cheating at cards, but he was just protecting some fucking coward, and Sophia, his wife, doesn’t even give him a chance to explain and practically throws him to the wolves. Jesus. Anyway, he comes back from Italy after 12 years (he confesses later on to the heroine that there has been no one else… does this mean he hasn’t gotten laid in 12 years? DUDE, that’s loyalty) because Sophia writes him a letter saying she wants an annulment so that she can be free (this smells a little bit like Duchess In Love by Eloisa James). Easterly assumes that she means to marry someone else, so he comes back, telling himself that he’s just going to see if the guy is good enough for Sophia, but really he wants to know if they can still get back together. Or something. Sophia, in an attempt to thank him for some brave thing he did 12 years ago, embarks on a quest to find out what happened to the bracelet and to prove to the ton (who already assumes that Easterly is guilty) that Easterly is innocent of thievery, and gets herself into some bullshit shenanigans. My only problem with his novella is that Sophia is stubborn to the point of ridiculous. Throughout the story, she cries about Easterly leaving her to face the scandal for by herself and how scared she was, and all Easterly wanted from her was a letter or some inclination from her that she wanted him back, and he would have come running. All I can say is if these two morons had really loved each other, they would have said, “fuck the ton”, and ran away to some fucking island, and lived like kings.

Who stole the bracelet? Who cares. This anthology is only readable for Quinn and Hawkins’ stories, and the other two are crap. Actually, Enoch’s is about ten times better than Mia Ryan’s story, and it’s unfair to lump hers with that piece of crap, but I guess I was just irritated that her story focuses more on how fucking crazy the heroine’s parents, instead of the hero and the heroine. That’s not cool, dude. Oh, and I have Mia Ryan’s The Duchess Diaries in my TBR pile, but unless someone convinces me that it’s the best fucking read since No Lifeguard on Duty by Janice Dickinson, I don’t want to read it.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 30th, 2005 at 4:12 pm and is filed under Books, Grade: C, Romance: Historical, Romance: Anthology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.