Grade: D-
passion rating: hot
I so disliked this book — the second in Ms. Jordan’s inexplicably named Forgotten Princesses series - that, after reading it, I put it down, waited several weeks, then picked it up again for a re-read. I wondered if I'd initially judged it too harshly. Sadly, the second time around was an even worse experience. This book has it all: Inconsistent and annoying leads, a plot that plays like a mediocre melodrama, an obvious and unnecessary villain, and a love story one roots against rather than for. It is, as Lady Gaga would say, a bad romance.
The heroine, Grier Hadley, is the illegitimate daughter of the king of the London underworld. Her father, Jack Hadley, has brought Grier and her sisters to town to marry them off. He believes aristocratic marriages on their part will elevate his social status. Grier was raised by her now dead saintly step-father in Wales where she worked by his side as a game keeper. She loathes the social rituals demanded by the ton but believes a good marriage will give her the propriety she desires. Grier resents the upper class snobs who belittle her for her scandalous birth and her sun-speckled skin even as she longs to be one of them.
Jack keeps dragging Grier and her half-sister Cleo to society functions where, he informs them, the two will catch aristocratic mates. At one such ball, Grier is hiding behind a fern and shoving frosted biscuits in her mouth when she hears two men talking. The taller and broader of the two is clearly looking for a bride but when his companion suggests Grier or Cleo, the man dismisses the sisters as completely unsuitable. He and his friend quip that Grier and Cleo are women a man beds rather than weds. Grier, despite knowing that her pedigree does indeed make her ineligible to many, is so angered by this man’s words she dumps her glass of lemon water on his head, snaps at him, and flounces off.
The heroine, Grier Hadley, is the illegitimate daughter of the king of the London underworld. Her father, Jack Hadley, has brought Grier and her sisters to town to marry them off. He believes aristocratic marriages on their part will elevate his social status. Grier was raised by her now dead saintly step-father in Wales where she worked by his side as a game keeper. She loathes the social rituals demanded by the ton but believes a good marriage will give her the propriety she desires. Grier resents the upper class snobs who belittle her for her scandalous birth and her sun-speckled skin even as she longs to be one of them.
Jack keeps dragging Grier and her half-sister Cleo to society functions where, he informs them, the two will catch aristocratic mates. At one such ball, Grier is hiding behind a fern and shoving frosted biscuits in her mouth when she hears two men talking. The taller and broader of the two is clearly looking for a bride but when his companion suggests Grier or Cleo, the man dismisses the sisters as completely unsuitable. He and his friend quip that Grier and Cleo are women a man beds rather than weds. Grier, despite knowing that her pedigree does indeed make her ineligible to many, is so angered by this man’s words she dumps her glass of lemon water on his head, snaps at him, and flounces off.
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