Well, that was a bummer.
http://asfenichel.com/
When I find a new author, I always have hopes that they will be the next Evie Dunmore, Mia
Vincy or Mary Balogh. But sometimes those hopes are crushed between a mountain of badly constructed sentences.Even though the cover of this book was odd, I went ahead and purchased The Earl Not Taken. After all Evie Dunmore’s covers are not quite like other historical romance books. I decided to give it a try. I don’t know about how other people read, but when I read, I have to find an author’s writing pattern before I can immerse myself in their books. I must feel that the author has the same love of the genre that I do before I can enjoy the story.
I wasn’t long into the story before I ran into problems. Those problems being awkward sentences, clumsy words, and no sense of time, space, and characterization. By the way, there was more than one Napoleon. There was I, II, and III. It takes more than dropping the name to establish historical context. I’m not going into detail, but this book needed a good copy editor, a good proofreader and an honest critique partner. I stuck it out until I arrived at this sentence: “Pain etched lines around Rhys’s mouth. His full and maddeningly interesting lips pulled taught.” There’s so much about that sentence which makes me cringe. But “taught.” Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Are his lips teaching? I don’t think so. I think his mad, interesting lips are probably just taut. After that sentence, I complained to the person across the room. That person told me to continue. I made it to page 23. By this point, I was looking for things that were wrong instead of enjoying a story. It became obvious to me that I could not continue.
As a lover of the romance genre, I was insulted by what appears to be a rush to publish. It always pains me when I cannot finish a story from a genre I love.
Time/Place: England in the time of a Napoleon (by the way II never ruled)
Sensuality: Have no idea
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