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I’ve heard a lot about how tight the publishing market is, but after reading this book I find it hard to believe. No Greater Treasure is one of the most poorly written books I have ever read. It might be improved with a few rewrites and some decent editing, but it still wouldn’t be worth reading.
No Greater Treasure is the extremely uninteresting tale of a couple of archaeologists who fall in love. Kacey O’Reilly is beautiful, with a curvaceous figure and “lengthy titian tresses.” Rafael Assante (or Rafe as he prefers to be called) is a virile Frenchman with a “thick mat of chest hair.” Rafe is a former student of Kacey’s father Colin, and when Colin hears about a new archaeological find near Durango, Colorado, he invites Rafe to go along.
Roughly half the book takes place on the train ride to Colorado. Nothing especially important happens, but there are plenty of scenes featuring Kacey dressing herself and admiring her lengthy titian tresses in the mirror. There are also several dining car scenes where the characters spend a lot of time deciding what to order. Both Kacey and Rafe are frequently overwhelmed by lust, even though they hate each other. Whenever Rafe is around, Kacey has to fight to control her racing heart and traitorous body. They do meet a woman with a baby on the train. When Kacey saves the baby from drowning, the first thing Rafe notices is how great Kacey looks in her wet dress.
They finally arrive in Colorado and start in on the dig. This part of the book is peppered with secondary characters who are walking stereotypes. There is a Quaker family. Kacey mentions how she has never met Quakers before, which is pretty odd since she is from Boston and there were plenty of Quakers in the Northeast at the time. There are also a couple of teenage girls who seem to have no discernable reason for being there – aren’t unchaperoned young ladies always hanging out at archaeological digs in the nineteenth century? Then there are those dangerous Indians who don’t want the site disturbed. They talk in a dialect straight out of a fifties western. Also disturbing is the shaky archaological foundation on which this group of scientists bases some of its conclusions. For instance, Kacey determines the site must be very, very old because only baskets are found and not pottery, pointing to a less-advanced culture. Unfortunately, this is likely the wrong conclusion to draw because baskets cannot survive over time unless they are buried in permafrost – the permafrost line is much further north than Colorado.
As they work closely together, Kacey and Rafe act on their lustful feelings. They are always hot for each other, even when Kacey is weakened from a poisoning incident. Rafe woos Kacey with come-ons like “I feel as if a herd of wild boars were rooting through my mid-section”. What woman could resist sweet talk like that? The purple prose is just downright funny. Some of my favorites:
…his maleness pressed into her sensuality, and she was unable to cast it aside.All in all, the writing in No Great Treasure is consistently awkward. There are typos, poor word choices (at one point the hero looks like he stepped out of a bandwagon when the word should be bandbox), poor sentence structure, and stilted dialogue. The editor in me kept wanting to rephrase every other line so it would sound better – reading a book with a red pen in hand is a bad thing.Rafe’s low, husky voice startled her from behind, making her skin tingle as if a million merciless straight pins had been catapulted at her.
Kacey rode the tide of desire like seaweed, unable to escape the languor she felt.
Her pulse pounded a frenzied rhythm like a drumbeat at an aboriginal ceremony
In short, this book is totally unreadable. At times I was laughing out loud, but never at the right times. This is Ms. Kelley’s debut novel, and hopefully she can improve with her next effort. She has nowhere to go but up.
Grade: F
Book Type: American Historical Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 13/11/98
Publication Date: 1998
I've been at AAR since dinosaurs roamed the Internet. I've been a Reviewer, Reviews Editor, Managing Editor, Publisher, and Blogger. Oh, and Advertising Corodinator. Right now I'm taking a step back to concentrate on kids, new husband, and new job in law...but I'll still keep my toe in the romance waters.
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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.