Heartless by Anne Stuart

June 22, 2018
Someone needs a copy editor
 
http://anne-stuart.com/
I try, I really, really try to ignore typos or the wrong word/s inserted into a sentence. You know the words I’m talking about, those words which are actually correct, but the author leaves a letter out, and of course the spell check will not catch it because – it’s not wrong. For instance, in this book, and I quote, “I doubt it would hock me.” Hock me? What does that mean? The heroine perchance has a side of pork attached to her leg? Or maybe she needs money. What I’m pretty sure was supposed to be there was the word “shock”. But ‘twas not. If this had only happened once I wouldn’t be whining, but it didn’t and even though I didn’t count the number of times this happened, it was distracting – and sloppy. Don’t get me wrong, there is a reason I don’t count the mistakes, or complain (too much). Editing is a very hard job. Your brain lies to you, it makes you see the words you want to see. No matter how hard you try, you can read and reread and then turn to your bestest buddy in the whole wide world and they will miss stuff. Even those bestest buddies who went to college and had high marks in grammar – you know who you are. So, I understand, I feel your pain. But I feel my pain also. It only added to my overall reaction to this book. After seven long years of waiting for the next installment of the Rohan family, Heartless had the earmarks of a rush job. The overall feeling of this being a rush job, or something that just had to be finished just because. Much as I was looking forward to this Rohan installment, I was disappointed by it. You know, I am always up for one of Ms. Stuart’s manly-men-Steve Morgan bonehead heroes, even when I don’t like them.

As I said earlier, it’s been seven years since we were last visited by the House of Rohan. And, that is a long time for anyone to remember who did what to whom. But, I’ve reread this series quite a bit, so I didn’t have to injure my little brain-box too much to refresh my memory. Captain Lord Brandon, one of the Rohan’s, was injured in one of the wars in Afghan. He was a mess; his face was half-way destroyed and he almost died from injuries. What that means to my little Petunia’s is that one side of his face is allllll scarred and the other side of his face is beautiful to look at. He is a I-only-have-half-a-face hero. Lucky for him, he was nursed back to health by Emma Cadbury. 

Now Emma Cadbury happens to have made an unusual career choice for a heroine. She was a prostitute who eventually became a madam. She was, of course, forced into that career. So, her past isn’t one which would be conducive to being a member of society. Anyway, Brandon and Emma become quite close during his recovery. They fall in love, but she knows it will never work, so she runs away. While she is hiding from him, Brandon’s family finds him and takes him home. Well, Brandon slides into a blue-funk, to put it mildly. If you read the previous book, you will know he turned to opium and a group of sadistic mad-men called the Heavenly Host. The story ended with the group being destroyed and Brandon fighting to join the world. He is in Scotland recovering. He also doesn’t quite remember Emma, but he knows that there is some kind of memory just beyond his reach – something hiding in the shadows waiting to be brought back to life. 

Three years later Emma is attending a baptism for the newest little Rohan and Brandon grumpily decides to journey from Scotland to attend. Because he doesn’t quite remember Emma, he is surprised when she tries to avoid him. Why is this strangely attractive woman trying to avoid him? And, thus begins the beginning of repeated maneuvers of him advancing and she retreating. She does a lot of retreating in this story. I lost track of the number of times she ran away from him. It was annoying. As you can imagine, Emma’s returns over and over again to the I'm-not-good-enough routine. Logically, being a prostitute, she probably wouldn’t be. But she was a nice prostitute. However, the poor me routine was constant, over and over, the neutrons in her brain cells kept turning – much like a hamster in a wheel. It was pretty tiresome. I’m not that stupid, you don’t have to beat me over the head to get the point across. I got it right away that she considered herself not good enough.  

The scene. For a lot of the book, I didn’t think Brandon was going to live up to the bad-boy temperament which Ms. Stuart endows her heroes – but he did. In their first sexual encounter, there can only be what I would call a forced seduction scene. She said no. I had a problem with this being included in the book. I was already having issues with this story, but this dropped the book down to a another level. Forced seduction is not seduction and definitely not romantic. It's a belittling of another person’s rights. I think the author should have taken a step back for a moment before she included this scene. While I am not a big fan of some romance author’s who are trying to make a political/religious statement or right some kind of world-wrong, I do think it is time the forced seduction in Romanceland was laid to rest. 

Anyway, once again I have to say I’m very disappointed by Heartless. I was so excited when I saw it was to be published. This story was not up to Ms. Stuarts normal standards. The pacing was off, there was pondering, pondering, pondering of the same thing over and over. It was filler. Maybe just too much time had passed between the previous book and this one. The story was rushed and had an incomplete atmosphere to it. Sorry to say, I cannot recommend Heartless. 

Time/Place: Georgian England
Sensuality:Warm/Hot/Disturbing