The Reluctant Suitor

I feel sorry for readers who see Kathleen Woodiwiss's name and pick up this book because Woodiwiss is considered to be the Mother of modern mass-market historical romance. This book is awful. First, and most problematic, the treatment of the female hero is abysmal. She is supposed to be a very capable young woman, but weak storytelling here finds her falling apart whenever the uber-masculine hero is around. Really? Do we have to do that old trope again? But even worse: she is sexually humiliated -- literally exposed -- at least three times before her wedding. Yuck. Are we really supposed to be entertained by this? And just when it finally seems like the couple has achieved their (unlikely) HEA, the last 150 pages turn very dark -- with show more murders, sado-masochism (and not the consensual safe-word kind), abuse, more humiliation of women, and just stupid, unnecessary stuff. In this book, the aristocratic class is presented as "normal" and "nice;" the servant class is presented as simple or even stupid, with much of their dialogue written in phonetic dialogue, and the evil villains coming from the merchant class and working class. Offensive. The entire novel is also hopelessly overwritten, with stilted, convoluted constructions at the sentence level, and a fundamental lack of pace in the plotting. The first SCENE takes like three chapters and 70 pages. The first DAY of the story takes us to about page 130. In all, there is about 200 pages of actual story in this 580 page novel. I hope I've convinced anyone who might be tempted to read this novel that it's a waste of time. Not recommended. -cg show less

I tried to read this book twice and could not get through the first chapter. There is a point were being very eloquent in the writing is very distracting and just down right boring. That was this book. I can't rate the story because I couldn't find it around all the unnecessary words. However, if I don't finish a book it gets a one star rating. The story might be great but i'm never going to know because it is not worth my time to decifer. Too many other things out there to read. I have read other books by this author and did not have this reaction.

I have this two stars for the longevity. Otherwise, this is terrible! If I read “glowing gray orbs” or “winsome” or “pulchritude” one more time…

There really is nothing that I have found redeeming about this nearly 600 page novel. Conversations take ages. The back stories are expressed at length for a chapter before the conversation begins again, and what is said no person of quality of the time period would have uttered in public. Just complete nonsense. Not a true courtship or love scene to be found that wasn’t full of tired words or corny cliches. I could not even like the characters who were either unintelligent, vapid, or just plain boring.

The language was excessively florid and the author seriously needs to get a hold of a thesaurus. The words "pulchritude," "winsome," and "rare beauty" were used enough times to make a person nauseaus.

The storyline was forced and everything wrapped up far too neatly. However, the best part of the book was the last few chapters where we found more out about Genie and the murderer.

I do have to say that I was disappointed in this book. It didn't seem like the same author as all her other books. This would have to be the least favorite of all her books. I question if she wrote it alone.

One of my favorite authors. I was NOT disapointed.