TEST
It would have to be a pretty special situation to leave me, literally, without words. Yet for days after finishing this book, I didn’t even know where to start the review. Yeah. It’s that bad. <a href="http://www.likesbooks.com/banmanpro/a.aspx?ZoneID=4&Task=Click&Mode=HTML&SiteID=1&PageID=33387 ” target=”_blank”> <img src="http://www.likesbooks.com/banmanpro/a.aspx?ZoneID=4&Task=Get&Mode=HTML&SiteID=1&PageID=33387 ” width=”150″ height=”200″ border=”0″ alt=””>
Galiana Montehue is out walking in the woods with her younger brothers lamenting her lack of magical powers, when Sir Rourke O’Wallis gallops up and draws his sword. She picks up a rock, beans him in the noggin, and takes him back to Montehue manor. The next day, he wakes up blind, his men arrive to kill her brothers, and he pulls out a piece of paper signed by Prince John that orders her to marry him. She stomps her feet, slobbers at Rourke’s pretty face, and pulls out a piece of paper signed by King Richard that says she doesn’t have to marry anyone she doesn’t want to. There’s a poisoning. Then a murder. They lust after each other! They marry! Galiana’s dormant magic powers surface!! They defeat the bad guys!!! And move to Scotland for their happily-ever-after!!!! The end.
I’ve read worse plots, but not by much. This one was tedious, random, and damned shoddy. Case in point: Rourke’s blindness, which flip-flops between actual blindness, color-blindness, severe myopia and severe hyperopia – all of which explain, I presume, how Rourke can see that Galiana’s forehead is broad and her eyes are brown, but not know the colour of her hair. I didn’t care who poisoned the knights, I didn’t care who the murderer was, and I really didn’t give a crap for Rourke and Galiana, who emote their way through the book like teenage drama queens.
But the book didn’t actually fail until the halfway point, which is when the accumulated writing travesties began to take their toll. The head-hopping. The clumsy syntax. The misnomers. And dear God, the vocabulary. It should be mandated in Medieval 101 that you can’t get instant Medieval just by inserting “nay” and “for certes” ad nauseum amongst the 21st century nouns and verbs – it doesn’t work that way. It especially doesn’t work that way when, at one point, your heroine snorts and says, “Woot, woot.” To be fair, Medallion Press markets the book as a paranormal. To be unfair, if it’s set in 1193, features Eleanor of Aquitaine, liberally uses faux-Medieval language, the paranormal content is complete piffle, and that adds up to Medieval to me. But either way, put real simply, the writing is bad.
And I don’t know who to blame for this, but I’ll make one more observation before I leave the book for good. I read an advanced readers’ copy and uncorrected proof, which means it’s not a finished copy and all errors in spelling etc. will be corrected, and I can’t quote from it blah blah blah. Well, memo to Medallion Press, and to whoever decided that this copy was in any way readable: You’re wrong. Your misplaced apostrophes cause misunderstanding. Replacing em-dashes with hyphens creates mystifying compound words. The incorrect paragraphing results in dialogue confusion. It is total anarchy. It cannot be read in this format. And. I. Did. Not. Enjoy. Reading. This. Book.
The best thing I can say about Beauty’s Curse is that no pets are harmed in the telling of the tale, no races insulted, and no genders slighted. But if I lived in a tent, there would be holes in the fabric from where I threw the book against it. I am glad I finished reading it, I am glad this review is over, and I really hope none of you have to go through this phenomenal waste of time and resources.
Grade: F
Book Type: Paranormal Historical
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 23/12/09
Publication Date: 2009
I live in Seattle, Washington and work as a legal assistant. I remember learning to read (comic strips) at a young age and nowadays try to read about 5-6 books a week. I love to travel, especially to Europe, and enjoy exploring smaller towns off the tourist track though London is my favorite city in the world.
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Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.