Mini-Reviews: Snow White and a Grumpy Duke

Towards the end of 2022 my romance book club decided to read a book that was available via Kindle Unlimited.  At the time there was a 99 cents for 3 months special going on.  I could buy the book for $4.99 or get 3 months of KU for a dollar.  An easy call.  Here's two mini-reviews for books I read thanks to KU and at the time of this blog post they're still available there. I suspect they could work better for readers who aren't nearly as curmudgeonly as I am...

The Duke Alone by Christi Caldwell was the book club read and it's a perfect example of All Trope, No Substance.  

First things first, it's a riff on Home Alone. With the London townhouse in need of repairs, Lady Myrtle McQuoid's family is on their way to the countryside.  Myrtle, newly returned from finishing school is feeling out of sorts because by golly they ALWAYS celebrate Christmas in London, and with the household in an uproar with packing and shenanigans, Myrtle is once again shuffled off without notice.  The neglected sister who nobody pays attention to blah, blah, blah. Her bruised feelings get even more bruised when she realizes the next morning that her family has left without her. She's all alone in the townhouse with only the grumpy Duke of Aragon, Val Bancroft, living next door.

This is a grumpy / sunshine book - which I can like those! I have liked those! Unfortunately it's also the bulk of the conflict.  The entire book is basically:

Heroine: Tee Hee, I'm so sunshiney and twee and let me sing Christmas carols incessantly. 

Hero: I'm wounded and grumpy and why won't this girl leave me alone ::grumble, grumble, growl, growl::

It's 300 pages of this and it just Goes. On. Forever.

Oh yes, and there's also some burglars snooping about (remember, Home Alone) but they're more an after thought than anything else and take up very little oxygen in the story. Myrtle is no Kevin McCallister I'm afraid. 

Then you get the requisite ending where Myrtle's family comes back for her and her mother is all like, "You silly goose we love you and the past 18 years you've been feeling neglected well where ever did you get that idea?" and it's all right as rain.

I think this would have worked better as a traditional Regency written in a bubbly farcical style. Tighter word count, less room for repetition, and the dearth of conflict beyond trope would have been way less noticeable. 

Final Grade = D+

The most enjoyable aspect of Bianca and the Huntsman by Erica Ridley for me was reading all the ways the author twisted the Snow White fairy tale to fit a story set in Regency England. The magic mirror is a talking parrot (warning: when he gives the wrong answer to who is the fairest of them all, Mr. Parrot meets his maker...), the seven dwarves are seven debutantes, and yes of course the poison apple makes an appearance.

The problem is that the rest of this story just doesn't work. Bianca is the by-blow of an earl who died in a carriage accident with Bianca's mother, his mistress.  This is how much a bubblehead Bianca is, she hopes that she and her father's wife (you know, the woman he was cheating on with her mother) can be "friends." The Countess is evil (of course) and is like, why yes darling come live with me, and naturally she puts her to work as a maid. Bianca is still amazingly OK with this, still hoping they can be "friends."

Anyway, the Countess gets all butthurt (see dead parrot / magic mirror) and decides that Bianca should be ruined.  She "hires" Lord Harry Lynsander (the Huntsman) for the job. Harry has been shopping around for an heiress to marry because Dead Old Dad has squandered the family fortune. He willingly accepts the job of ruining Bianca but gets cold feet after he meets her because so beautiful, so innocent, blah blah blah barf.  He helps her run away, she starts traipsing around London with the seven debutantes, and somehow her and Harry fall in love.

This is very heavy on fairy tale, which is fine - but unfortunately Bianca's characterization isn't.  She's naïve bordering on too-stupid-to-live (I mean, she IS Snow White) but then she's dropping sexy banter with Harry like a practiced courtesan. Yes, her mother was a courtesan, but Seductress Bianca really does not jibe with the toothache-inducing innocent Bianca that inhabits the bulk of this novella.

Then there's the ending. These two kids get their happy ending but they do ZERO work for it. The perfect solution (Bianca is a poor by-blow with no resources, Harry has a title but needs to marry an heiress because he's broke) just falls from the sky right into their clueless laps.  The very definition of a Regency historical romance dues ex machina. The fact that the couple didn't have to work for their happy ending just further annoyed me.  It was refreshing to read a fairy tale trope that wasn't Cinderella or Beauty and the Beast but other than that? Meh.

Final Grade = D