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kris's Reviews > Love Letters From a Duke
Love Letters From a Duke (Bachelor Chronicles, #3)
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Felicity Langley has been planning on marrying the Duke of Hollindrake for at least 4 years. She has letters and everything! The Duke of Holllindake AKA Thatcher, meanwhile, has just gotten back from some time on the Continent doing war and is uninterested in his alleged bride. But when he goes to break things off, Felicity mistakes him for a footman and because this is a ROMANCE DEMMIT, he plays along until his ~feelings get in the way.
1. There's something extraordinarily empty about the characters vs. setting in this book. Thatcher kisses Felicity like a billion times in public. He attempts to seduce her on a window seat in a house also occupied by her sister, cousin, former nanny and adopted Aunt. There didn't seem to be any weight to anything because none of the rules of the real world dared impinge upon the text.
2. I haven't been so unmoved by feelings and boners in quite a few books.
3. Felicity was boring. Thatcher was equally as boring. I didn't understand them; nothing made them unique or special or memorable.
4. My review for Love Letters From a Duke would probably be nice if I hadn't finished The Taming of the Duke between now and then.
1. There's something extraordinarily empty about the characters vs. setting in this book. Thatcher kisses Felicity like a billion times in public. He attempts to seduce her on a window seat in a house also occupied by her sister, cousin, former nanny and adopted Aunt. There didn't seem to be any weight to anything because none of the rules of the real world dared impinge upon the text.
2. I haven't been so unmoved by feelings and boners in quite a few books.
3. Felicity was boring. Thatcher was equally as boring. I didn't understand them; nothing made them unique or special or memorable.
4. My review for Love Letters From a Duke would probably be nice if I hadn't finished The Taming of the Duke between now and then.
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December 2, 2015
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December 2, 2015
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Andree
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Dec 02, 2015 09:57PM
Re: point 1. That is one of my major issues with historicals lately. If you're choosing a setting with those rules, perhaps abide by them at least a little. Or, y'know, at least come up with a hand-wavey reason that allows me to ignore them when the characters do something ridiculously risky. It doesn't need to be much. e.g. For some reason the rest of the household was caught up in a freak carriage accident which has miraculously left them all temporarily stone deaf. I don't know, but something. I mean, I'll hand-wave away modern attitudes in heroines for obvious reasons, but if you're writing a historical can we at least acknowledge the restrictions of the setting? And either abide by them, or come up with at least a semi-logical reason for ignoring them.
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Andree: Completely agree! The other corner to that point that I didn't mention was that the characters kept mentioning the understood rules. Like, the heroine would get all stiff when the hero touched her in public because "anyone could see!" but then he'd go ahead and kiss her, in public, where anyone could see. (And I can't even use his Dukehood to handwave that because he hadn't been raised as a Duke and therefore was blase about the rules? OR SOMETHING?) It stinks and setting should matter!!
(I would love to read about a freak carriage accident with everyone turning up temporarily deaf while shenanigans ensue!)
That's the worst part, when the rules are applied inconsistently. If they're ignored for 90% of the novel and then applied at the crucial moment, to be dramatic and create the most trouble for the heroine (because let's face it the hero is almost always exempt). If you don't want to deal with the restrictions, then pull a Tessa Dare and invent a Spindle Cove, where the rules are relaxed. Otherwise work within the rules and stop having your heroines do things that would potentially amount to social suicide.(It would be fun! I think the more absurd historicals are often my favourite, because they are consistent with the rules, they just tend to come up with ridiculous reasons to ignore them. But I can get behind. Ridiculous reason. I can't get behind a completely illogical decision.)
