“Dying is easy, Comedy is hard”
Peter O’Toole or Edmund Kean or Jack Lemmon or Donald Crisp, take your pick.
http://www.valeriegbowman.com/
Valerie Bowman is not one of my auto-buy authors, but the book booty seems to be a little
sparse right now. Just how many times can one read Julie Quinn’s The Duke and I before one knows all the narrative? Consequently, I thought I would give Valerie Bowman another chance. While I was not very impressed with The Unexpected Duchess back in 2014, perhaps that particular story was one of her off moments. I decided to pick up No Other Duke. As it turns out, No Other Duke is the 11th in the Playful Brides series. Much to my surprise the first book in the series happens to be The Unexpected Duchess. I vaguely remember that book because the hero had handy-dandy fat fingers, which were constantly dipping into the heroine’s valley of love. Light bulb moment. It dawned on me that this was the 11th book in a series that started in 2014. That is sort of five years. I am no math whiz, but that mean’s Ms. Bowman is pumping out books at a high rate of speed. Calculation: approximately 2 ½ books a year. That is a lot of writing, editing, writing, and more editing. Sometimes speed and writing does not mix. I will be honest, this book did not encourage me to go out and purchase anymore in the series. So much for glomming.Evidently, Lady Delilah Montebank and her friend Lucy have been a matchmaking duo in previous books. Now it is time for Delilah to find her one true luv. She has a man in mind who fits the bill, the Duke of Branville. She just needs to figure out how to corral the elusive man. Here is the deal, because I have only read one other book in the series: I am not familiar with Delilah’s personality. You know what I mean. Just what makes her tick? I am only assuming that a reader would become familiar with Delilah from Ms. Bowman’s previous books. Maybe there was some character building in those books, because the Delilah in this book does not seem to have any complexities I was able to grasp.
What I do know is that Delilah has a loathsome mother, one who bullies her. She has to sneak around behind her mother’s back to do anything. Right now, that anything is putting on a play with allllllll of her friends. Delilah and her friends are going to perform A Midsummer Night's Dream – in secret. Remember a few months ago I mentioned book plots not making sense? Well here is a plot that does not. A Midsummer Night's Dream has a gazillion characters in it. All those characters in Shakespeare’s play would require a bunch of Delilah’s friends being in the play. How could they possibly keep this a secret from the evil mother? It made no sense, and it bordered on the absurd. However, that was not the only part of the story that had me rolling my eyes. No, that would be the Harry Potter love potion moment.
Love potion. Delilah decides to buy a love potion from a near-by potion maker. There is a trick to the potion. If you want someone to fall in love with you, you must make sure that after you give the brew to your victim, you will be the first person he or she sees. A-n-d, you cannot tell anyone about the potion. Delilah actually thinks the potion will work. OMG this is not a paranormal romance book! This is not taking place in the medieval time! There are no Vikings around. This is just a regular historical romance book. Evidently, the heroine is just silly. For me this part of the plot was over the top. When you mix that into the put-on-the-play theme, you get a real mish-mash. There is more. Enter our hero Lord Thomas Hobbs, Duke of Huntley.
Poor Thomas. Thomas has a conundrum. He has luved Delilah forever and ever. There will never be anyone for him but her. He is her bestist friend. He has wanted more than friendship for a long time. He wants her to fall in love with him; after all, he has been saving himself for her. He has a plan. Yes, it is a doozy of a Romanceland plan. He will take the potion and make sure that Delilah is the first one he sees. What a great plan, nothing could go wrong!
The moon is blue. When night falls, Delilah sneaks into Branville’s room to sprinkle the potion on his eyes. In the meantime, Thomas has found out about Delilah’s goofy plan. He switches places with Branville, and then he falls asleep. Delilah drops the potion on his eyes. The moon shines into the room! Whoops! Instead of Branville’s face, she sees Thomas. It is Thomas! What’s he doing here? She cannot let Thomas see her! She must avoid him! What a mess! She doesn’t want Thomas to love her because of a potion. She wants Thomas to love her for herself! What can she do? She wants true love, not potion love. Wait a minute, wait a minute! What about Branville? I guess the potion was ok when Branville was on the receiving end. On top of all that nonsense, the secret love potion did not stay secret for long. There were scads of unmarried people using the so-called secret potion. Just like in the play, people were running around falling in love with people they do not want. It is a love-mix up story with a love-mix up play inside it. It was all very dizzying.
Authors should be careful when they borrow storylines from tales that are well constructed. It always encourages comparison, and Ms. Bowman’s story does not make a good fit for a Shakespeare tale. While I understood the potion vs Puck’s faery dust, there could have been some zany slapstick without the magic. As we all know, I am a big fan of humor in my books, but this book was just too implausible for me to enjoy. Sorry to say, I cannot recommend this story.
Time/Place: Regency England
Sensuality: Warm/Hot
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