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'Tis a random place for me to write random things... like reviews and random thoughts that not everyone necessarily needs to know about.

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Location: Deerfield, Illinois, United States

Ah... let's see. I always hate putting things here. I filled up my "About Me" section on myspace with a quiz. And the one on livejournal with randomness. And an Animorphs thing, of course. Umm.

Saturday, May 19, 2007

The Duke's Indiscretion

Author: Adele Ashworth
Published Date: May 2007
Letter Grade: D-

What, I ask you, became of my fabulous run of good books? Here I thought I was going soft, but now I have to wonder if I'm starting to be too hard. Maybe, but I hardly think so with this book.

Julia Quinn, for the first time ever, has failed me. Since she hasn't come out with a new book since I started this blog, I haven't been able to expound on my feelings for my favorite romance author's writing. But I have been a great fan of hers since my second or third romance read ever, her How To Marry A Marquis. Generally speaking, I have found great success with other books and authors that she has reccommended over the years, so when I came across Ashworth's novel on Avon Publishing's New Releases page last month, I remembered that Quinn had reccommended Ashworth about the time of the woman's first novel. Naturally, I thought this to be a promising sign. To reccomend it further, Lisa Kleypas, an author I enjoy to only a slightly lesser degree than Quinn, was quoted on the front cover, praising Ms. Ashworth.

And so, armed with the high praises of my two favorite authors, and having read an enjoyable sample chapter on Ashworth's homepage, I bought the book with every hope that it would be a wonderful read.

The book started somewhere at a "B-," then steadily delved into the "C's" as it became increasingly mediocre, and then dove into a sinkhole of badly executed plotline, boring characters, and implausible endings. Basically, it became utter crap.

Two things saved this book from an F:
1) The first three and a half chapters were interesting enough.
2) There was a good twenty pages, give or take, where I felt a certain lack of annoyance at the novel.

To give you the basics: Colin, the Duke of Newark, who works for the Crown, has been infatuated with the opera singer, Lottie English, for years, and manages to sneek in a meeting with her. Lady Charlotte Hughes, sister to a not-very-nice man who happens to be deeply in debt, has been moonlighting as Lottie English. What follows is Colin's superior making an excuse for him to really meet Lottie (that is, as Charlotte, not in full costume) and Charlotte, for some reason, propositioning Colin in a decidedly different way than he intended (i.e. as his wife, not his mistress.) Random mishaps and misunderstandings follow, plus a bit about something valuable that Charlotte owns and someone else seems to want (the "someone" is pretty much answered the minute you find out there's a valuable something at all, but this, as with many things, Ashworth seems to quickly forget.)

The whole thing, past the first three and a half chapters, alternates between frustrating and just plain boring. The "mystery" isn't much of a mystery, the bits where Colin reveals various things about himself weren't really that interesting at all, and Ashworth seems to have a knack for creating needless conflict between the characters just for conflict's sake.

Something that annoyed me very much was that, at the very beginning of the book, both characters say "...had been in love with...for three and a half years" but then, about halfway through the book, when the subject of love is brought up, they acted as though the idea had never crossed their minds. This is especially frustrating with Colin, when his obsession with Lottie English was so built up early on (by "so built up," of course, I'm speaking relatively. Nothing was built up well enough to be believable in this book.) That, and throughout the book, characters talk about what a rake Colin had been, but Ashworth hardly builds up this impression at all.

This book is chock full of inconsistencies. It's as though Ashworth wrote the first three and a half chapters, and then promptly forgot everything she wrote there, and carried on her merry way. From that point on, it was utter pointlessness followed by more utter pointlessness. Conversations that led nowhere interesting, sex scenes that usually made me yawn (though this may be an effect of having read too many. The only way to surprise me now is to write none in at all) and a resolution to the whole "mystery" that was just plain stupid.

And the ending. Lordy. Who cares? What did that really have to do with the plot as a whole?

And, why, oh why, did she have to harp on all the French in the book? I kid you not, it was as though she had posted a blinking, neon sign above certain characters that screamed "FRENCHWOMAN!!" I really don't care that they're French. It has no bearing on the plot whatsoever. Olivia's advice to Charlotte about the whole Charlotte vs. Lottie thing made. No. Sense.

My advice to anyone who wants to read this book: Read the first three and a half chapters, than make up the rest of the book as you see fit. You'll probably do a much better job than Ashworth did with this beyond sorry attempt.

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