Grade: B-

Dear Bam,

So… I read My Footman, My Prince by Robin Danner. I think I deserve a gold star for even picking up another book of hers after reading Petting the Cat. I also think someone should check to see if Ms. Danner has a multiple personality disorder because I just can’t believe that the same person wrote both of these stories.

Nicolai Alexandrov, the prince of Villanova, is charged with saving his kingdom from a curse that begins when the family stops inbreeding with the right bloodlines… or something. I know Villanova as a lovely, leafy suburb of Philadelphia, but apparently it’s part of Europe, though we’re never told what part or where, and has excellent relations with England and all of their nobility. This is where I admit that I’m a geography idiot. So sue me - if this place exists! I need to be shown a map or at least given a good description of where it is, and I’m not interested in googling something while I’m reading romance. Nick’s council… or parliament… wants him to hurry up and take care of the curse or they’re going to overthrow him. To lift the curse, Nick has to choose between two women from specific families that will keep the inbreeding going; a lovely, pliant girl or an elusive recluse. Elusive recluse, here we come!

Bronwyn Montgomery has been led to believe she’s a freak because of her awful, horrid… birthmark. A BIRTHMARK. By her eye. Not over half her face, or even a lightning-shaped jagged mark in the center of her forehead, but a crescent-shaped mark at the corner of her eye. Maybe I read something wrong here, but I didn’t get what all the hoo-hah was about. Oh, and Bronwyn was fucked over by her former suitor, Sean, who used her and her family’s connections to win a seat in… Parliament? Well, that’s definitely more plausible as an excuse for shunning society than a birthmark, for fuck’s sake. Since Bronwyn hasn’t left her house in the light of day in five years (yes, you read that correctly, the Prince thinks he’s going to get some housebound woman into the public eye as a princess after she’s been a shut in for half a decade) Nick decides that the best way to court her is by posing as her – can you guess? Yep, footman.

Ms. Danner does a credible job setting Nick up as a footman; he has trouble taking orders, he’s shocked by how well the Montgomery family pays their staff and decides to pay his more, and he finds some relief from the nagging of all the duties of a prince through menial labor. I thought that a lot of his interactions with Bronwyn would have normally occurred between a lady and a maid, but this wasn’t so jarring that I had to put the book down. I actually was interested in seeing how he was going to convince Bronwyn to come out of her shell without scaring her back into it. Nick’s alternate moments of impatience and encouragement rang true and I kinda liked him, and could see him as a benevolent dictator without question.

Bronwyn, on the other hand, was a mass of contradictions. Sure of herself one minute then having a panic attack the next, at times I felt like I was getting dizzy with her going from smart, sassy bluestocking to nervous, fearful, shy girl. The panic attacks were totally over the top, but Bronwyn’s other reactions seemed in line with someone who had been severely slighted and didn’t want to get so severely embarrassed again. Her constant fear about her looks made me want to slap her. Really; most people are totally unaware of how they look unless they’re standing in front of a mirror. Since her house in Wiltshire was not described like the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, I find it hard to believe that she just couldn’t forget for a single moment that she had a birthmark. More than once she referred to herself as disfigured, like she was missing a limb. ANNOYING. Luckily, the growth of her relationship with Nick was a pleasure to read and didn’t feel like she’d been clubbed over the head with an instantaneous moment of love and lust. Their attraction grew steadily and she gets the hots for him, while experiencing some serious angst about him being a footman, which also worked well.

Other than Bronwyn’s disfigurement, there were a few things that really got to me: first, we hear about all this unrest in Villanova and the need for Nick to wrap things up quickly, yet at the end (or even towards the end) this is never discussed. Second, when Bronwyn finds out he’s really a prince, she capitulates a leetle too quickly for my liking. For someone who wouldn’t go outside to pick up a newspaper, I find it hard to believe she’d accept all of this so easily. Lastly, the middle of the book dragged as secondary characters (hello Lord Deveril) were introduced, hashed over, and dialogued about by Nick and Bronwyn. I felt like there should have been more of an ‘80’s montage of Bronwyn coming out of her shell (kinda like Stallone getting the Eye of the Tiger back in Rocky III) over the period of a few weeks rather than some of the long, drawn out scenes that happened. Overall, though, the dialogue was good and the growth of Bronwyn and Nick’s relationship worked. Wow… real dialogue, cohesive plot, clear relationship, strong characterization, timely situations… my diagnosis is definitely multiple personality disorder. Oh, and I think it deserves a B-.

Love,
Shuzluva

This entry was posted on Monday, January 15th, 2007 at 4:20 pm and is filed under Books, Grade: B, Romance: Historical, Shuzluva's Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.