A Scot in the Dark by Sarah MacLean

October 5, 2016

I’m not worthy – no, I’m not worthy – no, I’m not worthy. You’re right, you’re not worthy, but then neither am I.

http://www.sarahmaclean.net/
Oh my little Petunias, in A Scot in the Dark we have not one unworthy lead character but two. Yes, yes Lily Hargrove is unworthy because she is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful – but no boy likes her. She has no friends, she is unworthy. Why is she unworthy? Because she is beautiful! I guess that’s why. I wasn’t quite sure. Then we have our unworthy hero, Alec Stuart. Why is he unworthy, you may ask. Because he’s big, big, big! He’s a brute! He’s a beast! He’s brawny! He’s not good enough for any fair maiden because he is a beast, beast, beast.

Unworthy. I have an issue with the plethora of unworthy characters strolling through Romanceland. I’m tired of them. There are soooo many of them around. The writing in a book with a whiny-woe-is-me person would have to be pretty good for me to like it. But to suffer through two unworthy people – it was just tooooo much. It was a struggle to get through this story.

Not only are both the hero and heroine unworthy, our heroine, Lily is unlikable. In the real world, beautiful women usually have friends or people who want to be friends. There’s a lot of shallow people out there, so they are always on the look-out for someone who will make them look good. People like to hang out with beautiful people. So, in this book we have an extremely beautiful person with no friends or want-a-be – why? Don’t know, it was never made clear as to why Lily was so unpopular. Of course, she is not the most pleasant of people when she has her run-ins with our hero. Let me tell you, I did not find her wit funny. She was more derisive then witty, more contemptuous then droll. Her clever quips were just mean. Lily was just plain ol’ disagreeable.

Bigness vs Hagrid. I love Hagrid from Harry Potter. He’s a great lumbering, gentle guy – but there is no way I would ever consider him sensual (maybe sexy in a cute sort of way). Hagrid would just not trigger my “wow is he hot” hot-o-meter. To say that the constant reminder that Alec was a big, big, big, brute of a guy was irritating was an understatement. I’m not sure which authors ushered in gigantic heroes, but somewhere in my hazy memory – before Fabio hit the covers – I remember smaller heroes. Some were even downright thin (they were probably vampires). Yes, I know the purpose of the big, big, big reminder was that we needed to know Alec had body issues, but this book mentioned it 50 gazillion times – it was over-kill.

I feel bad. I liked Ms. MacLean’s earlier books but this one was a struggle to get through. I wanted to like both characters in this book, but Lily turned into a beautiful shrew who does stupid things which don’t work in the time period she supposedly lived in. And, Alec could have been a wonderful hero – a lovely Scottish guy, but his perception of himself was badly written and that was the author’s problem.

Sorry to say I didn’t like this book. I was very disappointed. I expect more from Ms. MacLean. I cannot recommend this book.

Time/Place: Regency England, I guess
Sensuality: There is sex, just no chemistry