The Capture of the Earl of Glencrae by Stephanie Laurens

Grade: D

passion rating: hot

I literarily wended, linguistically traveled, and read with eager purpose, burgeoning desire, and incendiary yearning. Utterly determined — alone and seeking a reviewer’s sweet satiation — engaging my somnolent disbelieving emerald orbs - fraught and needy, laboring to find the pinnacle of completion, desperate beyond measure to finish this book. Done. Basking. Glorying in the magnificent awareness, the enthralling conviction I will no longer - never again - have to read prose like that found in Ms. Laurens’ overwrought and overwritten tome The Capture of the Earl of Glencrae.

The Capture of the Earl of Glencrae is the eighteenth book featuring the Cynsters. Perhaps the only interesting thing about this novel is that, in it, the Cynster males — Devil and his uber-masculine kin — are as boring and unnecessary as a dance number on the Oscars. Sadly, the Cynster women aren’t any more engaging — I found the heroine of this book, Angelica Cynster, annoying, silly, and verbose. She’s yet another Laurens heroine who is practically perfect in every way: A virgin with a harlot’s skill, exquisitely beautiful without a trace of icky vanity, able to handle any challenge thrown her way with clichéd wit and chirpy charm.

She’s also able, with just a glance, to see that a tall, incredibly handsome man she spies at a soiree is destined to be “her hero.” She’s has a magical necklace dangling betwixt her breasts, passed onto her by her sisters, a “talisman that The Lady, a Scottish deity, had gifted to the Cynster girls to assist them in finding their true loves.” Somehow, between wearing this pendant and noticing that “he was undeniably the most gorgeous male she’d ever seen,” she’s determined to marry the man before they’ve ever exchanged a word.

The gentleman in question is Dominic, the eponymous earl of the novel. Dominic is at this party searching for Angelica, whom he’s never met. He is the elusive quasi-villain of the first two books in the Cynster Sisters series; a man who for reasons unknown kidnapped and then released unharmed Angelica’s two older sisters. When Angelica approaches him and makes it clear she’s like to take a walk in the garden with him, he takes her up on her offer, sweeps her into his arms and over his shoulder, gags her, binds her arms and legs, and tosses her into a carriage he has waiting in the mews. Angelica, despite being uncomfortable and miffed, gives some thought to his behavior and decides that, yes, he’s still her true love and yes, she’s still meant to be with him. She tells herself, “Whatever it takes, he will be my hero.”

click here to read the rest of the review at All About Romance