Thursday, May 7, 2009

Midnight's Bride by Sophia Johnson


Woo it has been awhile since I reviewed, but I just finished a new book,so here goes. This was my first book by Ms. Johnson and honestly it will probably be my last. Lets break down the problems first.

Here is the synopsis from Amazon: Mereck of Blackthorn has vowed never to love - for he is cursed with baresark blood and it runs hot. But he must take a wife. When he meets Netta of Caer Caldwell, he is willing to spirit her away from her father's violence, even if he refuses to give her his heart...With her father determined to be rid of her, spirited Netta cannot escape marriage to the heathen Mereck. But she soon learns that he is not the barbarian he believes himself to be - and his kisses fire her blood with a passion she longs to claim...

Sounds interesting right? Well it should have been.

Characters: The main problem is that the "baresark" curse does not really seem like such a curse at all. Mereck does not really suffer at all because of it. At the most it seems he just has a bad temper when Netta is endangered or when someone insults his birth. In other words he is like a million heroes before him, in fact he reminded me of an early Garwood hero, not a bad thing at all. Except just being a hero with a temper does not match the synopsis nor does it really make the story unique.
Lynette or Netta was the other problem. At times she was so stupid that I stopped feeling sorry for her. TSTL should have been her middle name. In the beginning of the story, when we see how her father behaves with her, it is easy to feel sorry for Netta. As the story wears on and her reactions to Mereck begin to grate that sympathy dissipates. Her reaction to Mereck after he saves her from an assault is not only incredibly annoying and naive but it does not seem true of the braver Netta we met in the first chapter. It is well and good that Mereck's "curse" was not really a curse, because Netta would not have been able to handle it.

The secondary characters were uninteresting except for Bleddyn and Meghan, who I really wished to see more of. I normally am not that big of a fan of the androgynous heroine, but Meghan was honestly the most interesting of the women we meet in the book. Elise made me want to give her a shake! She was forever hiding behind Netta. Elise's dependence was supposed to make Netta seem stronger I suppose, but in reality it made Elise look woefully lacking. Conner could have been interesting with a better heroine. Eric, a cousin we see every few pages, seemed to be in the story only to give Conner a reason to be jealous. The other characters were all right at best. The villain was another cartoonish deceptive fop. He was only so successful at times because Netta was TSTL.

Plot: Most of the plot was already gone over, but the story would have benefited from a hero more tortured.

Pros: Some of the scenes of the women discussing sex were kind of funny, though they got a little repetitive at times.

Cons: A weak, TSTL heroine, an un-tortured hero, and secondary characters not worth a second look.

So is this love worth the sale? If you got some extra money from income tax returns and you've read everything else available on a really, really slow day.

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