Desperate Distractions

Rating:
Summary: Sexy Page-Turner (and still historically accurate!)
Review: Desperate Distractions- the new romance novel by Rachael Grace- was a real stay-up-til-two-in-the-morning page-turner! Even more fascinating was the historically accurate detail. As someone who has taught both medieval and early modern England at the college level, I am more sensitive than most to ahistorical details and anachronisms. This book never trips up! It is extremely well-researched and yet never feels dry or dusty. The characters come alive and leap off of the page. Unlike some romance writers, Grace seems just as comfortable writing from a male perspective as she does a female one. This makes for much more believeable characters and dialogue than one usually sees in a historical romance. She also allows her characters to be sexual without straining the bounds of possibility given the period. An A+ first effort from a rising new star!

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful sexy romp
Review: I devoured this book. Desperate Distractions is a fast-paced romantic novel that is moving and inspiring. Where is my Sir Robert? This wonderful read stands way out in the pack of mindless and historically inaccurate published in the category of historical romance. Let's see more. Go Rachel Grace!

Rating:
Summary: comparisons, comparisons
Review: Why the devotion in both reviews to knocking other historical romances as a way of praising this one? I took them to heart and bought the e-book, wishing (now) that I'd perused the sampler first. The dialogue is so beyond stilted that I found it practically unreadable. Not for a minute do I believe people ever talked that way. It struck me as wholly inauthentic, the author's imagination working solo, her idea that people used 4 times as many words back then to convey the simplest message. The narration was better, but the love scenes gave new meaning to the word STOCK. Where in this book is the stupendous authenticity I heard about? Nothing jumped out at me as "Wow, that is so authentic!" I'm an old fan of Sergeanne Golon, Anya Seton, Lolah Burford, Fiona Harrowe and Marilyn Harris, still searching for jump-off-the-page historical authenticity in any new romance I've read. Many current authors manage it. This author seems in no way exceptional, so don't be fooled unless you want to be. Much more than authenticity, I'm still in search of a great plot (read "adventure") and believable characters. This hero, with his pathological need of a virtuous virgin (not just any virgin), is so old hat and boring that I nearly quit reading. Pathological is too exciting a word to fit him, really. What DID I like? His looks, the author's way of putting that unshyly and succinctly instead of pretending it's an incidental thing to a woman, even a drawback. Also, the heroine's sexuality (for a change). That was refreshing.