You're gosh darn right, blurb. Aren't unmarried men the worst? What are they afraid of? Misery?
In criticising The Playboy of Pengarroth Hall a perceptive critic would be well-advised to begin with the title, but Mills & Boon authors rarely choose their own titles, leaving it to the more knowledgeable and audience-savvy collective brain of the publisher. Therefore we cannot fault the writer, Susanne James, for faithfully submitting a by-the-numbers romance only to have it weighed down with a lazy, thoughtless title. The Playboy of Pengarroth Hall certainly sounds classy, sexy and mysterious, as all playboys surely are, but rarely does a playboy get as much page-space as a sheikh, or a surgeon, or a sheikh surgeon. No one outside romance fiction knows if a sheikh surgeon is something that exists in the real world. Maybe he's a sheikh who performs surgery, as a hobby, or a back-up plan if sheikdom doesn't work out long-time, mending hearts as quickly as he can break them... Who knows? It's a good tag-line either way. To find out more there is always The Sheikh Surgeon Playboy's Reluctant Bride, but why is she reluctant? He's a sheikh surgeon playboy for pity's sake.
Still, as noted previously, Sebastian Conway is pretty classic, in his Wellington boots, trudging across fields, drinking copious amounts of coffee and sleeping in boxer shorts. He's also an orphan which negates the tiresome business of parent issues, besides those concerning him being an orphan. While he had a deluge of previous lovers (that is the correct term, a deluge of lovers), these were never serious relationships, just casual sexual flings, because as with all Mills & Boon heroes, Sebastian has little respect for women as anything more, or less, than sexual objects. Speaking of sexual objects, Fleur Carpenter was a basket-case full of neuroses. Let's begin with the name, which obviously translates from the French as Flower Jesus. Completely nonsensical. Despite this shaky footing, Fleur is carefully introduced as a delicate creature, single and independent, but lost in life and with only her important work in science giving her existence meaning. Ignoring this possibly ground-breaking work she takes a week off to celebrate Christmas and at Mia's urging stays on at the house for over a month in order to get back into shape and put some colour in her cheeks. This can't be literal, because skinny, wan girls are surely the pinnacle of masculine lust, but that hardly matters, because as has been solidly demonstrated the characters in this book are thin caricatures and not worth spending any more time on.
In narrative terms, sending Fleur to Cornwall does little but establish that she loves solitude and walks in the country miles away from people. This is fortunate, because solitary walks are what are in store for the rest of her life. Chapter One takes place a few days before Christmas. Fleur arrives and has a run-in with a disgruntled and stuck-up individual on the grounds of Pengarroth Hall. How rude he was, she thinks, but still incredibly handsome and sexy, with dark, enigmatic eyes and thick, black hair. If only he wasn't so cruel and distant. You'll never guess who the man turns out to be, reader. Wait. Actually, have you been paying attention? If so, you'll easily guess. It turns out to be Sebastian. Did you guess? You must have been paying attention.
By Chapter Two all the Christmas plans made in Chapter One have been forgotten as it is now a few days before New Year's Eve and plans are afoot for the celebration of a year's worth of calenders becoming worthless. No sooner have you said, 'No, I'm busy,' than Chapter Three picks up in the first week of January. If this sounds like an unnecessary waste of time and lazy writing, you'd be correct about the former. It's not lazy, however, as James spends needless amounts of energy contriving a circumstance for Fleur and Seb to be together, alone, in a large house, when surely she just needed to put them together in the house and forget all the festivity rubbish. Anyway, Fleur and Sebastian don't need excuses to be in the same room, as they're in love with each other. Of course, in order to keep in contact without acknowledging that they're emotionally retarded they make up excuses to be together. They take a trip to Truro (for Seb's lawyering) and share intimate moments in a church. It would almost have been interesting had something happened. Then, when Fleur returns to London because the author has decided that might as well happen, Sebastian is forced into drastic measures to keep her in the same room as him. And so, he murders a dog.
Now, before those fans who have read the book refute this accusation of homicide and explain simply that Benson, the dog, was old and sick and died of natural causes, which had earlier been implied in the plot, the fact remains that Sebastian blatantly murdered the dog. If that wasn't enough he shows up at Fleur's door in the middle of the night to tell her to her face. He believed the news would devastate her, more than it would Mia, who owned and grew up with the dog. Fleur spent a couple of weeks patting Benson on the head. Mia can wait, Sebastian decides. Mia's a heartless jerk, we assume. Then, after some more stuff the explanation of which will depress both listener and explainer, Sebastian reveals the reason behind his troubles with commitment (his allergy to marriage, to use the medical terminology). He was engaged to a girl who turned out to be a prostitute, so often the excuse used by misogynistic bachelors. Finally, in a park in central London, a location as perfectly nondescript and potentially dangerous as a loved-up couple could ask for, Sebastian proposes marriage, Fleur accepts and the story ends.
All Bewildered Hearts are unable to understand not wanting to get married. We will marry anyone anytime, yet Sebastian's major character flaw is actually a virtue. He wants to make sure he loves the girl he is going to marry, and wants to make sure she is the one for him, and not a deceitful prostitute. How is his determination for certainty a stumbling block? Female people, sometimes you are confusing. As is becoming a disturbing trend then, the latest Mills & Boon is another disappointment. The predictable emotional hang-ups were never a match for a short conversation where those doubts were over-come by the shattering of misunderstood beliefs. In summary, thinking that someone doesn't want marriage when they do isn't a suitable obstacle to base a novel around. How about we find someone who genuinely does not want to get married? That sounds like a challenge. Furthermore, we should pour hang-ups into one another so love doesn't heal those involved of their flaws, but incorporates them into a single slab of unbreakable faith.
As a trivial aside, the most notable element of The Playboy of Pengarroth Hall is the old-fashioned attitude towards sex, especially in a so-called Modern Romance. There are no sex scenes in the book. There is one kiss and plenty of longing, but we are invited to believe Fleur and Sebastian wait until marriage before the sex and the childbirth that inevitably follows. This doesn't mean much, although it is nice to note that when we begin to write our own Mills & Boon, we don't necessarily have to describe the sexual act, thus saving us time on all that irksome research.
In criticising The Playboy of Pengarroth Hall a perceptive critic would be well-advised to begin with the title, but Mills & Boon authors rarely choose their own titles, leaving it to the more knowledgeable and audience-savvy collective brain of the publisher. Therefore we cannot fault the writer, Susanne James, for faithfully submitting a by-the-numbers romance only to have it weighed down with a lazy, thoughtless title. The Playboy of Pengarroth Hall certainly sounds classy, sexy and mysterious, as all playboys surely are, but rarely does a playboy get as much page-space as a sheikh, or a surgeon, or a sheikh surgeon. No one outside romance fiction knows if a sheikh surgeon is something that exists in the real world. Maybe he's a sheikh who performs surgery, as a hobby, or a back-up plan if sheikdom doesn't work out long-time, mending hearts as quickly as he can break them... Who knows? It's a good tag-line either way. To find out more there is always The Sheikh Surgeon Playboy's Reluctant Bride, but why is she reluctant? He's a sheikh surgeon playboy for pity's sake.
Still, as noted previously, Sebastian Conway is pretty classic, in his Wellington boots, trudging across fields, drinking copious amounts of coffee and sleeping in boxer shorts. He's also an orphan which negates the tiresome business of parent issues, besides those concerning him being an orphan. While he had a deluge of previous lovers (that is the correct term, a deluge of lovers), these were never serious relationships, just casual sexual flings, because as with all Mills & Boon heroes, Sebastian has little respect for women as anything more, or less, than sexual objects. Speaking of sexual objects, Fleur Carpenter was a basket-case full of neuroses. Let's begin with the name, which obviously translates from the French as Flower Jesus. Completely nonsensical. Despite this shaky footing, Fleur is carefully introduced as a delicate creature, single and independent, but lost in life and with only her important work in science giving her existence meaning. Ignoring this possibly ground-breaking work she takes a week off to celebrate Christmas and at Mia's urging stays on at the house for over a month in order to get back into shape and put some colour in her cheeks. This can't be literal, because skinny, wan girls are surely the pinnacle of masculine lust, but that hardly matters, because as has been solidly demonstrated the characters in this book are thin caricatures and not worth spending any more time on.
In narrative terms, sending Fleur to Cornwall does little but establish that she loves solitude and walks in the country miles away from people. This is fortunate, because solitary walks are what are in store for the rest of her life. Chapter One takes place a few days before Christmas. Fleur arrives and has a run-in with a disgruntled and stuck-up individual on the grounds of Pengarroth Hall. How rude he was, she thinks, but still incredibly handsome and sexy, with dark, enigmatic eyes and thick, black hair. If only he wasn't so cruel and distant. You'll never guess who the man turns out to be, reader. Wait. Actually, have you been paying attention? If so, you'll easily guess. It turns out to be Sebastian. Did you guess? You must have been paying attention.
By Chapter Two all the Christmas plans made in Chapter One have been forgotten as it is now a few days before New Year's Eve and plans are afoot for the celebration of a year's worth of calenders becoming worthless. No sooner have you said, 'No, I'm busy,' than Chapter Three picks up in the first week of January. If this sounds like an unnecessary waste of time and lazy writing, you'd be correct about the former. It's not lazy, however, as James spends needless amounts of energy contriving a circumstance for Fleur and Seb to be together, alone, in a large house, when surely she just needed to put them together in the house and forget all the festivity rubbish. Anyway, Fleur and Sebastian don't need excuses to be in the same room, as they're in love with each other. Of course, in order to keep in contact without acknowledging that they're emotionally retarded they make up excuses to be together. They take a trip to Truro (for Seb's lawyering) and share intimate moments in a church. It would almost have been interesting had something happened. Then, when Fleur returns to London because the author has decided that might as well happen, Sebastian is forced into drastic measures to keep her in the same room as him. And so, he murders a dog.
Now, before those fans who have read the book refute this accusation of homicide and explain simply that Benson, the dog, was old and sick and died of natural causes, which had earlier been implied in the plot, the fact remains that Sebastian blatantly murdered the dog. If that wasn't enough he shows up at Fleur's door in the middle of the night to tell her to her face. He believed the news would devastate her, more than it would Mia, who owned and grew up with the dog. Fleur spent a couple of weeks patting Benson on the head. Mia can wait, Sebastian decides. Mia's a heartless jerk, we assume. Then, after some more stuff the explanation of which will depress both listener and explainer, Sebastian reveals the reason behind his troubles with commitment (his allergy to marriage, to use the medical terminology). He was engaged to a girl who turned out to be a prostitute, so often the excuse used by misogynistic bachelors. Finally, in a park in central London, a location as perfectly nondescript and potentially dangerous as a loved-up couple could ask for, Sebastian proposes marriage, Fleur accepts and the story ends.
All Bewildered Hearts are unable to understand not wanting to get married. We will marry anyone anytime, yet Sebastian's major character flaw is actually a virtue. He wants to make sure he loves the girl he is going to marry, and wants to make sure she is the one for him, and not a deceitful prostitute. How is his determination for certainty a stumbling block? Female people, sometimes you are confusing. As is becoming a disturbing trend then, the latest Mills & Boon is another disappointment. The predictable emotional hang-ups were never a match for a short conversation where those doubts were over-come by the shattering of misunderstood beliefs. In summary, thinking that someone doesn't want marriage when they do isn't a suitable obstacle to base a novel around. How about we find someone who genuinely does not want to get married? That sounds like a challenge. Furthermore, we should pour hang-ups into one another so love doesn't heal those involved of their flaws, but incorporates them into a single slab of unbreakable faith.
As a trivial aside, the most notable element of The Playboy of Pengarroth Hall is the old-fashioned attitude towards sex, especially in a so-called Modern Romance. There are no sex scenes in the book. There is one kiss and plenty of longing, but we are invited to believe Fleur and Sebastian wait until marriage before the sex and the childbirth that inevitably follows. This doesn't mean much, although it is nice to note that when we begin to write our own Mills & Boon, we don't necessarily have to describe the sexual act, thus saving us time on all that irksome research.
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