![\"\"](\"http:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Honey.jpg\")
After two very enjoyable reads from Mira Stables, this one was a slight disappointment. The writing, the historical accuracy and the romance were well up to scratch, but there were elements that I found concerning.<\/p>\nAfter two very enjoyable reads from Mira Stables, this one was a slight disappointment. The writing, the historical accuracy and the romance were well up to scratch, but there were elements that I found concerning.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the premise: Letty Waydene is more or less betrothed to Lucian Staneborough, but she\u2019s deeply suspicious that society belle Russet Ingram is trying to tempt him away from her. She asks her guardian, James Cameron, to do something about it. So he does. He kidnaps Russet and holds her a prisoner at his remote country estate.<\/p>\n
Wait a minute\u2026 he kidnaps her? Yep. Initially she\u2019s confined to one locked room, but when she makes a risky bid to escape, he gradually allows her a little more freedom. Now, I\u2019m all for a hero being masterful and macho, but there\u2019s a clear line between that and aggressively domineering, and it seems to me that the hero clearly crosses it here. He does soften somewhat as the story progresses, but then there\u2019s a moment towards the end of the book when he has another outbreak of one-sided decision-making. Of course, this was first published in 1979 (forty years ago!) when things were very different, so I make allowances, but it still left a nasty taste in my mouth, and if this would bother you, best avoid.<\/p>\n
The other oddity in this book is the extraordinarily convoluted backstories the characters have. Much of this seemed like pure plot contrivance – Russet\u2019s wealth, and the father pensioned off to Italy because reasons, so that Russet can be just setting out on a journey there when she\u2019s kidnapped and so won\u2019t be missed. And then there were James\u2019s Indian servants, whose purpose seemed to be to increase Russet\u2019s isolation in captivity because they couldn\u2019t speak much English. A more serious weakness is James\u2019s complete failure to verify his ward\u2019s story. She tells him Russet is a problem and he immediately jumps to intervene, ending in the drastic step of kidnapping her. That seems to display a sad assessment of his flighty ward\u2019s character.<\/p>\n
Really, all these problems should have counted against the book more than they ultimately did, but it\u2019s so well-written and the romance is so beautifully developed that I managed to overlook most of them. Still, that kidnapping keeps it to four stars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After two very enjoyable reads from Mira Stables, this one was a slight disappointment. The writing, the historical accuracy and the romance were well up to scratch, but there were elements that I found concerning. Here\u2019s the premise: Letty Waydene is more or less betrothed to Lucian Staneborough, but she\u2019s deeply suspicious that society belle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[147],"class_list":["post-2131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","tag-stables"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2131"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3693,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2131\/revisions\/3693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}