2008-01-07 Change the record, Martina

This is the fourth Martina Cole novel I've read, and it's becoming a major chore. Having already read three of her books, the formulaic nature of them and the repetativeness is becoming more and more annoying. In fact, I doubt I shall bother to finish this one. As usual the book is packed with anachronisms and lazy research. The characters are the same in every book - the female lead who is stunning but doesn't know it; the male lead who is over six feet tall even at times in history when the average male height in tis country was about 5 foot 7; they have dazzling white, perfect teeth; as usual, there is the hard-working and wise Irish mother; yet again, we have the "hardest man in London" as the main male character... and so the list goes on. Okay, so this was Cole's's first novel, but why have all the others been exactly the same? Enough is enough - reading the same book over and over is a waste of my time, especially when there are far better on my shelves.