Saturday, August 20, 2011

Review: The Ghost of Carnal Cove by Evelyn Rogers

No comments  
Title: The Ghost of Carnal Cove
Author: Evelyn Rogers

Read copy: Mass Market Paperback
Published: December 20, 2002
Publisher: Leisure Books
ISBN: 084395115X
ISBN-13: 9780843951158

Fleeing London and a disastrous love affair, Makenna Lindsay heads for a cottage on the windswept shore of the Isle of Wight, only to find that instead of the peace and isolation she is seeking ghostly danger and very real, unwanted temptation await. This romance has all the classic elements-a brooding, tormented hero, an orphaned heroine, a motherless child, and a mansion on the cliffs-as well as a sizzling sensuality that would have been shocking in the earlier Gothics but is very much in keeping with what many of today's readers expect.

My rating:

This book was the perfect example of gothic romance gone bad. The hero, while the author probably tried to portray him as brooding, came across as an obnoxious oaf. The heroine, in true gothic fashion, captivated by his obnoxiousness, let him get away with everything - from accusing her of wandering to Carnal Cove for an illicit liaison with a sailor (after she wandered to Carnal Cove out of her wonderful “female instinct”) - who would want to have an illicit liaison, with a sailor or someone else, in the conditions of Carnal Cove is beyond me. I like my liaisons, illicit or not, somewhere comfortable and warm, not freezing my butt off...or extremities on the other liaising partner, which might come mightily handy during the liaison.

Anyway, I digress.

Where was I? Oh, right. The heroine (bless her soul) lets the grumpy, snarly, obnoxious hero get away with everything. The accusation of the illicit liaison, the rudeness, the insults, the demand for illicit liaison with him etc.

Yeah, the hero was a bastard, but she had it coming. Or the author made her had it coming. Does that even make sense? I don’t know, and I don’t care. She was an idiot. Which made them a perfect couple in the end.

And the story itself, beside the hero and heroine being idiots, didn’t make much sense to me. She was nursing her broken heart so she decided to retreat to a godforsaken place, only to meet an even greater bastard. She keeps hearing a child crying, seeing a woman in white. Two ghosts, probably, related to the hero, since his wife and child died in—woo-woo—mysterious circumstances...Blah-blah-blah. And all the while the hero is being a class-A prick, and the heroine takes it all lying down, thankful for the good fortune of meeting such a perfect gothic romance hero.

, , , , , , ,

0 comments:

Post a Comment