2003-11-08 Mildly entertaining romance - shame about incredible setting

For his part, Perryn can't imagine why he's so intrigued with Fenella, especially as he knows that she isn't the lady of his dreams. He's still searching for the golden angel who rescued him from the pit of despair five years earlier, when he was grieving for the death of his lover. So why does his Fennel, as he calls her, matter to him so much?

Someone else thinks she knows, and so when Perryn and Fenella are guests at her house party Mrs Altringham devises a plan to throw them together. She holds a charity treasure hunt, in which her guests must pair off and spend two weeks travelling around the countryside in coaches, collecting items to sell for charity. The best collection will win a prize. Fenella, being naturally competitive, wants to win - but is appalled when her host's machinations pair her up with Perryn, with whom she fights almost every time they meet, and whom she has an almost irresistible desire to kiss. Can they possibly spend two weeks in close proximity without killing each other?

The romance is actually quite well done; Fenella and Perryn go through appropriate phases of impatience and irritation with each other, moments of inexplicable desire, and spend time getting to know each other very well - enough to learn some surprising things about each other. But the setting is so incredible that I can't rate this book any higher than two stars.

First, a lady and a gentleman - not related to each other - alone in a carriage for hours at a time? Where were the chaperones? This is simply not possible. Equally, where were the chaperones at the houses the teams visited? Men and women seemed to be alone together without a single person batting an eyelid.

Second, it's equally impossible that the teams could have been out every day. Carriage-travel was exhausting in the early nineteenth century; the roads were dusty and full of holes, and no matter how well-sprung a carriage was, there is simply no way that Mrs Altringham's guests would have turned out day after day to travel from place to place. And travelling on the day after a ball (which would have ended late) and on a Sunday? Simply not possible.

Third, how could Perryn have possibly held a ball at his country estate four days into the expedition? Fenella notes that he would have needed at least two weeks to organise it - and yet he, like her, didn't know that they would be going on the expedition, and ending up at his home, until the night before they left. Silly plot hole, that.

I was jolted out of the story on several occasions by Americanisms and anachronisms in narrative and dialogue, and by grammatical errors. There were also elementary errors in word usage: King, 'disinterested' does not mean *un*interested!

The subplot regarding Fenella's brother seemed forced and unnecessary. Finally, it was very strange that we never learned Perryn's first name!

wmr-uk