DNF: Three Historicals

My favorite genre, yet even I couldn't stand some of the books.

First of all, I love Mary Balogh. I devoured her Bedwyn series even the off-shoot "Simply" series. I've also read Irresistible, one of her older works where the hero fell in love with his friend's widow. I thought it was good. However, try as I might, I couldn't get into Dark Angel, another older work which was reprinted together with Lord Carew's Bride. I thought the story, especially the beginning, dragged, maybe due to overdescription of settings and the heroine, Jennifer Winwood, didn't catch my imagination at all.


Julia Quinn is a favorite of mine for her humor and ability to make me laugh out loud. Unfortunately, I don't know what happened with this book, which seems to be missing the trademark Julia Quinn humor that I greatly suspect it's not written by her at all! Gasp! Or maybe I was used to her ballroom-gracing heroines that I had a hard time accepting Grace Eversleigh, companion to the grandmother of the duke.

Jack, the hero, didn't endear himself to me at all. I admit to being more intrigued with Thomas (the displaced duke) and his romance with Amelia (the woman betrothed to the duke). And so, my complaint: Why does the hero always have to end up the duke (or marquis or earl)? Couldn't he have remained a mere mister, since that is what he and the heroine wanted anyway?

I also have this nasty habit of reading the ending, so I saw that after Jack became the duke, the dowager duchess was sent to live in a far corner of the estate, because of her formidable and unreasonable temper. Thomas, though he didn't have much affection for his grandmother, still went to visit her sometimes. (I sincerely think he should have been the duke.) Whereas Jack even told Grace she didn't have to visit the dowager duchess anymore, though she did once a month. I think it's safe to say that Jack didn't even visit his grandmother at all. Which led me to the question: Why? Why did he dislike her so? If not for her, he wouldn't have been the duke. Maybe that was the reason? Or maybe there's something that concerns his father? For as I had said, I didn't read the middle part of the book, so maybe that's where the juicy meat is hiding. But like the other books, didn't care to read to find out.

Kathryn Caskie is a new-to-me author. I liked Love Is In the Heir. I thought it has humor and an original hero. However, How to Engage an Earl didn't engage me at all. After reaching the part where Anne Royle got betrothed to the earl (fairly early in the book), I realized I didn't care enough about Anne or the hero to read further. Anne seemed to be one of the daughters from the secret union of the Prince Regent and a Catholic woman, and they were searching for some document to prove (or disprove) it, but I'm not so sure exactly what and I didn't care to find out.

It's really sad when a book makes me apathetic this way. Must be the weather or my lousy choice in books that I picked up three DNF's in a period of one week.

DNF: Two Historicals and A Romantic Suspense

After finishing Nightkeepers by Jessica Andersen (awesome book! Review to come soon), I thought I'd read some historicals before going into more paranormals (Deidre Knight's Red Fire and Larissa Ione's Passion Unleashed and Ecstasy Unveiled, not to mention the next two books after Nightkeepers). I've read so much about Julia Justiss that I picked up her book and another by Anne Mallory. Sad to say, I was disappointed.

A Most Unconventional Match by Julia Justiss utlized my favorite trope: friends to lovers. I was so sure I would love this! Unfortunately, the book (the writing, the characters) just didn't grab me. I read until the chapter when the hero and heroine met again after seven years, before I finally gave up. One good thing I do have to say for Ms Justiss: The hero has a speech impediment and his dialogue clearly showed it (unlike other books).

I was intrigued by For The Earl's Pleasure by Anne Mallory, as it also seemed to be a friends to lovers story, plus the fact that the hero became a ghost and only the heroine could see him (I gathered this from excerpts and reviews). I thought it was interesting and it probably is. I wouldn't know because I couldn't get past the first chapter where Ms Mallory meant to show that the hero and the heroine were at odds with one another and how they kept baiting each other through the years. She was able to show this marvelously, however, the characters came across as silly. I know there's not much maneuver room for historicals, unlike say in paranormals where the author is only limited by her imagination, but still...

A previous DNF (one I hadn't blogged about) is Hard to Hold by Stephanie Tyler. Just about everything about this book caught my attention--the cover, the back summary and the excerpt, and so, I picked it up while I was browsing in a bricks-and-mortar bookstore without reading the reviews beforehand. I don't know though whether it would have helped. I believe I read up to Chapter Three before I gave up. Aside from the fact that I didn't like the heroine (not usually something that happens to me), the book just didn't grab me. I forced myself to read on, but at some point, I just couldn't, so I stopped.

However, your mileage may vary, so don't let my DNF reviews stop you from picking up and enjoying these books. I know for a fact several reviewers gushed about Julia Justiss and that Shana enjoyed Hard to Hold, so you may have the same taste as them.