Heroine: Marcail Beauchamp née Miss Ferguson, actress
This is the second book in the Hurst Amulet series. (Although it might be better named the Hurst Onyx Box series at this point, since the amulet hasn't made an appearance yet.) This is not a stand-alone book, in my opinion. It's more of a stopover. Start with One Night in Scotland.
First, I have a complaint about the Kindle version. The formatting at the beginning of each chapter looked like this:
C
HAPTER 1
I don't know whose fault that is (I blame the publisher), but it irritated me. I paid $7.99 for the book; the same price as a paperback. I expect it to be as neat as a print copy. It may be a persnickety point, but it drew my attention away from the story at the beginning of every chapter.
I read a review on Amazon's site that complained about the cover art and title. Both are misleading. The action didn't take place in Scotland, and there wasn't a scandal. William never had a sword, and tartan wasn't a part of the story. The small ship in the corner of the cover was nice; William owned the Agile Witch and some of the action happened aboard. The publisher probably figured the title and cover would help the book sell. (To read more about titles, check out this post by Ashley March.) Neither played a part in my decision to purchase it; I enjoyed the first book of the series and wanted to know what happened next.
And now for my review:
I enjoyed parts of the book, but as a whole, the story fell flat for me. Marcail broke up with William in the backstory via a letter. She didn't mention her real reasons (his hot temper and jealousy could have jeopardized both of their burgeoning careers) in the letter, and when she revealed her true motivations years later, William's reaction ('I'm mad you lied, but yeah, you're probably right') was a let down. Come on, William, she didn't even give you a chance to screw up; she just assumed you would. You should have been mad about that.
Marcail's secret (and motivation for paying a blackmailer) seemed ridiculous, especially since there was too much telling and not enough showing. She wants to protect her sisters from being associated with an actress? Okay, then let us see an interaction between Marcail and at least one of her sisters. That would have given her more rooting value than the scene with her grandmother. The added detail of her having to pay for her sisters' seasons made it seem even more odd that she would give money to a blackmailer. Don't just tell us about her horrible father; give us a scene that shows him being a jerk.
William and Marcail really liked each other, and their problems were more fabricated than real, so they married quickly. The ending felt rushed, but I wasn't sorry to see William and Marcail's story end. It seemed almost like filler for the series. A side note: the epilogue said all of William's siblings attended the wedding, but that doesn't seem likely since Michael was still kidnapped and Robert was off chasing Moira. Details like that drive me crazy.
I don't like rating books by a star or number system, so here's my rating system:
Bad=Quit reading the book
Fair=It was okay; I finished it
Good=I liked it
Great=I loved it; definitely would enjoy re-reading it someday
Rating for Scandal in Scotland: Fair
---
By the by, the Goddess Blogs is hosting a book club on their Facebook page. The third Hurst Amulet book (A Most Dangerous Profession) was released yesterday, and there will be a discussion beginning October 31. I have never been interested in a book club before, mainly because the chosen books seemed a little too highbrow (and uninteresting) to me, but a book club with romances sounds really fun. That's the main reason I rushed through the Hurst series; I wanted to be able to join the fun.
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for commenting!