Challenge #3

Readers Of Romance Winter 08 Challenge

#3- Read a book that has a “D” word in it for December.
Scandal's Daughter
Christine Wells
Rating 3.0 stars
295 pages


My Amazon Review:

no scandal but lot of cliches.........., December 26, 2008

Synopsis:
She could overcome her infamous past-but not a present-day passion.

As a promise to her dying grandfather, self-proclaimed rake Sebastian Laidley has three months to marry off his childhood friend Gemma-or marry her himself. But this daughter of a notorious seductress has inherited her mother's charms, and when she turns them on Sebastian, he'll long to be the only man who wins her heart.

My Review:
Scandal's daughter unfortunately falls flat on it's promises. It has no scandal, no passion and very little originality. Knowing that this is a debut book, I tried to give the author the benefit of the doubt, hence three stars, but Scandal's Daughter is in actuality a two star book, and that's being generous.

The storyline is chock a block of every cliche, "I'm too much a Rake/tainted female to be married", "the misunderstandings" plot, "family scandal but family members are not what they appear to be", etc. I could go on but I don't want to bore you.

The heroine, Gemma, whose supposed to be this self sufficient dynamo, walks around the entire book with blinders on, not conprehending anyone elses motivations, not even realizing her grandfather, who she lives with, is dying, though the hero, realizes this as soon as he see the old man, after many years away. Gemma is about one step away for the dreaded "too stupid too live" title.

The one love scene was also "been there done that", the heroine, who berates herself constantly for feeling desire, thinking she must be "tainted" like her mother, then does a 180 turn and decides to become a wanton, right down to using protection her "scandalous" mother gives her.

The hero was not much better-Sebastian was a one dimensional cutout of many unreformed Rakes of past authors, nothing new here. It doesn't bode well for a less than 300 page book when you it takes almost five days to slog through, but I fell asleep several times trying to read this. This was one of those Historical Romances that the H/H literally fight their feelings until the last 10 pages-and it was not worth the wait.