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A Siren's Melody*

Oh, my! Did Not Like This Book!

Lady Isabella is not having a good first season. She had high hopes, as it will be the only season her uncle will give her. She escapes to a balcony at a ball and seems to draw a young man towards her while she hums a melody. They have an instant attraction. Russell is a spy who hasn’t had much interest in women because of his work and the demons in his past. But it seems that the siren’s call attracts him, and soon they are involved in a passionate affair.

I am a great lover of historical fiction, so I’m always quick to snap up any that I find at review sites. This is a book I’m having a hard time figuring out precisely what to say in this because, to my view, it is just so very, very bad. Right at the start, the author head hops between the two adults in the first scene. In the next scene about Lady Isabella as a young girl, the author has a two-year-old who uses more complex phrasing than a typical child of that age, but who can’t say Bella’s full name. Language is unnatural and stilted throughout both the narrative sections and dialogue. The characters as adults seem overly dramatic and not like real people at all. Even though these events take place at the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th, the characters sometimes use words and phrases that are far too modern. I find it hard to believe that a woman of those times would get involved in an unmarried, sexual relationship so fast. In general, I’m not a fan of intimate discipline in a novel unless there’s a strong contextual reason. It happens here, but I find the reason lacking. All parts of the sex scenes—and there are a LOT of them—were written in a style that had me cringing; they were more offputting than sexy.

I also don’t like the cover. He appears to be barely out of Eton and she well past thirty.

Even though this book has gotten rave reviews on Amazon, I cannot recommend this book at all.

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