River Lady (edition 1991)

Two books into my "Worst Book of 2012" I think I may have already found the winner. It is so bad. It is so unbelievable and unbelievably bad. The characters are...bad. The plot...bad. The writing...bad.

Where to begin? A man of culture and money, especially in 1803, is not going to jump the gun and marry swamp trash just because she's pregnant. No. He's going to deny, deny, deny, and at the very most give the smelly swamp trash a little money now and then so eventually the kid can go into service when he or she comes of age.

Women of a fine pedigree and a certain means are not going to dedicate any time or effort to trying to educate said swamp trash and teach her all the areas of refinement in speech and manner. This does not happen. It never happened. The upper classes have spent hundreds, thousands of years keeping the muck at an arm's distance. They preclude any assimilation at any chance or opportunity.

That's just two semi-rational reasons not to pick up this poorly written, poorly plotted smear of literary pig plop. Which makes me think my job here is done. ( )

Hated it, hated it, hated it. ( )

This is my favorite of the River series. I really enjoyed it. Wesley has some serious frying pan moments, and Leah too, but it was really enjoyable.