Now onto the fourth book in the series, Castles, where we run into a snag
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It had to happen. Remember me rambling on about the wonderful Garwood alpha males?
How we love those alpha males, blah, blah, blah. Well somewhere in our journey in the Wayback Machine we ran into an alpha male who also happens to be a bonehead. Yes, Colin is a stubborn, boneheaded, alpha hero. Now these boneheads come in many varieties. Some are drunks, some are gamblers, some are abusive, some are unfaithful, and some would rather be poor then use any of the little woman’s money. Guess which one Colin was? Colin, by the way, was the missing brother of Caine from Guardian Angel. He now has his own book, and compared with the rest of the males in this series he’s a let-down.First of all, Colin is avoiding his family because he believes everyone is trying to match-make, and nothing could be worse than being married. Secondly, he’s in need of funds but doesn’t want anyone else to help him – ever. He owns a shipping company, and he’s doing it his way. He has a five-year plan, and nothing will interfere with that. Oh yes, he also limps.
Enter Princess Alesandra. What do I always say about princesses? I hatesssssss ‘em. Anyway, Princess Alesandra is staying with Colin’s parents, but they have flu or something. They ship her off to Colin to stay while they recover. They can’t send her to Caine and his wife because they also have the flu. Colin doesn’t believe any of it; he thinks they are trying to match make. He visits all of them. He gets the flu. Alesandra nurses him back to health. I started to have a problem with this novel at this time. I’m thinking Ms. Garwood didn’t necessarily abide by the historical romance guidelines of an unchaperoned woman living with a bachelor. But that seems to be overlooked in this narrative.
Along the way, Alesandra is almost kidnapped, which somehow forces Colin to marry her. By the way Alesandra makes lists. Why am I telling you that? Because, in one of the funniest scenes of this book, Alesandra takes a pad of paper and pencil to bed with her on her wedding night. She wants to take notes. It was all very funny.
Even though Alesandra was a princess, I liked her. She found all kinds of ways around her husband’s five-year plan. She had tons of money, and she used the name of Uncle Albert to buy things – like ships. Among the many things she did, without her husband’s knowledge, was have special shoes built so that he doesn’t limp. Why doesn’t he know about any of these things? Because he’s a stubborn bonehead hero.
He will not use her money – ever. He will not use her money to save his company, buy ships, eat bread – whatever. He makes it impossible for her to be honest with him. When she wears fancy jewelry, he gets nasty because HE didn’t buy it. This is one of the problems with alpha males in Romanceland – they just won’t use that money that’s sitting there doing nothing.
Anyway, while Castles had a delightful heroine, the hero turned out to be a headache. Out of the four books in this series, this was my least favorite.
Overall, I had a fun time in the Wayback Machine with Julie Garwood. For the most part, these stories still work and surprisingly don’t show too much of their age. It was a pleasure to read them again.
Time/Place: Regency England
Sensuality: Warm/Hot
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