2018 romance, second in the Reluctant Royals series. Portia Hobbs,
former self-indulgent hot mess, has gone to Scotland to apprentice in
sword-making.
Well, it's more a fantasy Scotland, and that's where the book
tends to lose me; Thesolo was fine as a fantasy kingdom, but Scotland
is an actual place I know about, and Cole has missed some fairly
elementary points about it (like the fact that the title of Duke of
Edinburgh is substantive). I wouldn't write a novel set in New York
City without at least running it past people who lived there…
And, while both hero and heroine have genuinely good reasons to deny
their obvious attraction to each other, our hero spends far too much
time being unpleasant to her. Sure, once he realised she's his True
Love that all changes, but really, if he's not prepared to be at least
slightly pleasant to the person he's agreed to employ as an apprentice
for three months without being in love with her…
(What could you learn in a three-month apprenticeship that would be
worth a damn?)
The first book in this series showed two quite different approaches to
being African and the way that might affect one's life, but while
Portia has "golden brown" skin, mentioned once, there's really nothing
beyond that to indicate that she's meant to be non-white. The racists
in the book don't even seem to notice.
All right, there is some character development, and it mostly
convinced me; some of the later problems basically stem from these
people being too polite to each other. But the conventions of the
genre are much closer to the surface here than they were in A
Princess in Theory, especially with its smouldering Scotsman and
perky American woman, and in particular the willingness of both
parties to hear something about the other and put the worst possible
interpretation on it causes me, as always, to doubt that the
relationship has any sort of future.
After that rather fine first book I was very surprised by this step
down in quality.
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