2008-06-15 Plenty of research, but no passion

I was 'sold' this book on the strength of the cover tag lines promising "Passion" and "Rivalry". Unfortunately there was no passion, and the rivalry was of the milkwater variety.

The story seemed to take a long time to get going, with nothing but the strongest feeling that the author was determined to show us every bit of her research, as if this somehow made up for the lack of 'guts' to the story.

Despite this, there were weird anachronisms in the language itself, for example, at one point telling us that the heroine was unable to see the duke because she couldn't fit into his "schedule".

I'm sure even Jesus had time restraints, but I find it very difficult to believe in the concepts of 'scheduling' dominating the royal courts during this era. I fear that's a modern sickness.

Sadly, I didn't complete the novel. Like the duke, there are too many restraints on my time to fit something so unengaging into my schedule.