OK, what is wrong with me? I've read 7 - count 'em, 7! - of Kleypas's historicals and I do not like her writing. Do. Not. So, why do I keep torturing myself and trying to read them?
I dunno. But somehow I got caught up in the excitement of one of her series - HISTORICAL - and decided to try it, from the beginning, on audio. Free audio, I might add, since I did download it from my library.
Bleh. Meh. It's ok, but nothing great. This is the first book in her Hathaway series, about a group of orphaned siblings whose eldest somehow inherited a title that included a run-down estate and very little money. The next in line wasn't Madeline but (sheesh, what was her name...) - oh right, Amelia, who is the actual Adult (in her own mind) who must take care of the bunch. Then there's Wynn, and Poppy and Beatrix. I assume there's a book for each, not that I'll actually find out since I WON'T BE READING HER AGAIN (I'm trying to promise myself).
I really believe Kleypas is the first author of all the popular authors out there that I really just can't get into, and I keep thinking it must be a character flaw within myself. I mean, can all those thousands, maybe millions of fans be wrong, and me right? Maybe.
And, to make it worse, I did like the contemporaries by Kleypas - it's just the historicals that leave me yawning and wondering when it will be over. I give them 3 only because I did manage to finish them. Oh, maybe I should change it to 2.
The narrator for this book was Rosalyn Landor. I can't say whether I've listened to her before (without doing some research) and she had a sort of odd vocal thing that drove me to distraction, mostly with the hero Cam (half Gypsy who sweeps Amelia off her feet). I guess she was trying to do a Brit/Romany accent thing, and instead it sounded like maybe he had asthma or something. There was what seemed to be a big puff of air behind several of the opening consonants, like maybe he was coughing. You know how people say something in a cough? That was almost what it was like. Her girl-voices were good, and - I don't know her own nationality - her American character accent was good. She read in a British accent. But Cam - well, I didn't like it.
There was a story - you know, Amelia can never marry because she has to take care of everyone, and Cam wants her so he boinks her thinking she'll see that they HAVE to marry, but noooooo, that doesn't persuade her. There's a bit of quasi-paranormal when the dead fiancee of the brother appears twice as a sort of vision, and once as a cold wind. There's Wynn, weak from scarlet fever (think Beth in Little Women, only Wynn didn't die - at least not in this book); there's a 15-year-old (Poppy? Beatrix?) who SCAMPERS (right). and the eldest, whatshisname, who pines for the dead fiancee and tries to off himself but instead they exorcise the ghost. Hmm, a house fire, some boinking, some more boinking (alright, already, haven't they boinked enough?)
So, yada yada, blah, blah, blah, boink boink, ghost woooooooo, boink boink, yes I'll marry you. The end. almost 3 stars.
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