Sunday, September 18, 2011

Lady Thief by Rizzo Rosko

Summary:
To get back at the man who insulted and refused her, Marianne Holton kidnaps him and forces him to marry her before she's sold off to someone much more cruel...

Spirited and virginal Lady Marianne Holton seeks revenge on Lord Blaise Gray, a man she has never met, for insulting her by letter and refusing to wed her. She plans to force his hand before she is married off to Sir Ferdinand, a much older man known for his cruelty towards women. Her plan for a forced marriage goes well, but she forced the wrong man. Instead of marrying Blaise, she married his handsome, thirty-six year old father, Lord William Gray, Earl of Graystone.

...To her delight the plan works, but to her horror she married the wrong man.

William, a lord who had previously given up on life, is enraged to have had his hand forced by a woman who had the audacity to not even know his true identity until it was too late, and he vows to make use of his new bride as soon as possible. However, he finds himself unable to destroy the fiery spirit that took charge of her own destiny, and makes a new vow to protect her from Ferdinand, and make her his true wife.

Reviewer: BlackTulip
I wanted to like this new medieval romance but I couldn't. The major flaw is that it is lacking any medieval atmosphere and that there is nothing really inventive in it.

The character of Marianne is interesting enough; she is independent and definitely knows what she wants and I liked that. On the other hand Lord William Gray is a rather boring man who has no personality.

It was a nice enough idea to force the hand of the man who jilted the heroine by adbucting him and it began rather well. However, the fact that Lord Gray accepts the bargain with not enough fight or spirit is already difficult to swallow but when his reasons are, "oh well, why not, I could have a wife and children again" - I am sorry, but I don't buy it.

More confusing is that, after the kidnapping, we understand that William has no idea who she was, he has only a vague recollection that his son Blaise had jilted somebody . The problem is that at the time there was generally an understanding between families when it came to marriage, so the parents were well aware who was engaged to whom. It made no sense!

Moreover, in my opinion the jilting simply couldn't have been done by a letter, it's not how the things worked at the time. The story around this refusal was rather weak. I would have liked to have much more insight into the main characters' upbringing, it would have added more depth to the story.

In short I was never drawn to anything or anybody at any time. I give it a 2/5.

See the original review on goodreads
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/210226954

0 comments:

Post a Comment