September 28, 2011Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Riding through the Glen...
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Spoilers ahead. If you are at all familiar with Cathy Maxwell, then The Seduction of Scandal will hold no surprises for you. This is the story of spunky Corinne who doesn't want to get married, so she decides to run away in the back of a carriage. Since there is a highwayman in this story, the carriage she's hiding in gets robbed by our Robin Hood aka the Thorn aka Will Norich, the local minister. I'm not going give too much away, other than to say our intrepid heroine blackmails our highwayman/minister/hero into hiding her. And, they fall in love...fast!
There were parts of this book that I found humorous, and I liked Corinne a lot. I thought she was a pretty forceful woman, however, there were some things that bothered me about Corinne. She didn't seem to have an understanding of the word "hide." According to Websters: Hide is "a. to put out of sight: secret. b. to conceal for shelter or protection: shield c. to keep secret." No where in Websters does it say anything about going outside, going into the village or attending church services. She had an odd way of hiding. I also had a problem with the use of some modern phraseology or, at least, I was thrown out of the story. I just couldn't visualize a woman of the 1800's expressing herself with "How heroic was that?" That phrase just seemed too modern for me, might as well be "What's up with that?"
And then, toward the end of the book another character shows up to save the day. It seems he has been looking for Lord Bossley (or at least the person posing as Lord Bossley) for years. Now, why he had so much trouble finding Lord Bossley or the fake Bossley I don't know - because, unlike Corinne, Lord Bossley/fake Bossley wasn't hiding. He was in plain sight, maneuvering himself through society with a wife and son. So, I didn't get it.
Overall, there were parts that I liked and it had Cathy Maxwell's trademark humor, but it wasn't one of my favorite Cathy Maxwell.
Time/Place: Regency England countryside
Rating:
Sensuality Rating: Warm/Hot
2 comments:
I must say first that I thought the lower rating of this story was unfair. I bought this book with several others that were rated much higher by other readers. However, I liked the story and the characters. Corinne and Will were interesting: a Duke's daughter and a highwayman/priest. I also enjoyed the common people of the small village.
Portugal: Cathy Maxwell has always been an auto-buy for me. I even met her once at a convention and drooled all over the place, saying things like "you're one of my favorite authors," "I have all your books," I'm sure she thought I was a stalker. However, with all books, some work for me and some don't...Corinne didn't work for me. I did love the people in the village though. If you have never read any of her other books, I'd recommend "A Seduction at Christmas," "The Marriage Ring" and "His Christmas Pleasure."
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