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Title: Too Wicked To Love
ISBN: 0312968930
Author:
Barbara Dawson Smith
Publicate Date: 1999-04-15
Publish: 1999-04-15
List Price: $5.99
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Mass Market Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $4.95
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $0.01
Amazon Merchant Price: $5.99
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1: possible subtitle: too stupid to live.
Not enjoyable.
Plot summary:
Spinster finds abandoned infant, assumes it is the offspring of local badboy. Spinster demands badboy support child, while leaving infant in spinster's custody. Huh? Badboy wants child, doesn't want spinster. Smart badboy. But not smart enough. Spinster knows best: an infant needs a mother. Notorious badboy is seduced by manipulative, creepy spinster. Will badboy be compromised into marrying creepy spinster? Will creepy spinster live happily ever after?
So who is too wicked to love?
Yuck, this heroine is more dishonorable and unscrupulous than a dozen evil rakes. Truly frightening in her arrogance. The hero is a snarling schmuck, who thinks with his other head. These are not endearing, intelligent characters. The infant is a feeble plot device, used when necessary, then quickly forgotten by the author.
My recommendation: Skip this one.
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2: Too nosey and obsessive to love?
This isn't exactly a run-of-the-mill Regency; there's more plot to this book than the vast majority out there (Rakish nobleman meets debutante, seduces her, treats her badly, they make up) as this story includes a foundling child, a kidnapping, some character development and an ugly-duckling-becomes-swan transformation. The story moves along quickly, the characters are all well drawn and the ending is suitably upbeat.
This wasn't a great book, though. Although set in the Regency it could almost be in any era - there was very little Regency-specific background, description or events. The central premise (the reforming of a rake, who was less rakish than people thought anyway) is a common theme in these books which always gives me a moment of pause - what IS so attractive about a rake? Having heard the history of Ethan Sinclair, the Earl of Chasebourne (and Ethan is a rather dubious Regency name anyway), I would have thought he's already caught syphilis at least! Still, despite the Earl being caught in flagrante delicto, Jane Mayhew, prim on-the-shelf spinster, finds him rather appealing. A baby has been left on Jane's doorstep that is the illegitimate child of the Earl so Jane insists that he take the child as his own and find the mother. This is where Jane's obsessiveness comes in and it's not a particularly attractive side to her. At the end of the day, we English don't like nosey neighbours being involved in our business and boy is Jane involved! Not only that, she doesn't seem to have that much regard to the concept of privacy - the poor Earl's poetic scribblings aren't safe from her nosiness.
Part of the story is the hunt for the mother of Marianne - one of a possible four women - but after the middle of the story that subsides and the focus changes to the attempt by Jane to make the Earl fall in love with her. She goes about this in a rather strange way but then she's evidently a rather singular woman. I couldn't really work out what he found attractive in her (apart from the obvious - beauty - and the fact that she'd evidently make a good mother) but, as one requires in these novels, at the end he realises that she's the woman for him. Also, rather conveniently, despite being a womanising rake he's the soul of fidelity once the wedding vows are said. How realistic is this?
Although this book is written pretty well and the subject is slightly different from the norm, I couldn't entirely like the book. I've awarded it four stars as it's worth reading, especially at the cheap Mass Market Paperback price, but at the end of the day I think it's rather a forgettable novel.
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3: A brilliant historical romance
"Too Wicked to Love" is a fabulous historical romance set in Regency England. Jane Mayhew is a proper virtuous and spirited spinster living in her little cottage with her spinster aunt. When she finds a babygirl with a note on her doorstep she makes a bold decision.According to the note the baby is the abandoned lovechild of the Earl of Chasebourne. He is Ethan Sinclair, Jane's neighbour a notorious rake and he lives his life in scandalous debauchery. Jane in her rightful fury confronts him in his bedchamber and shocks him by the news and herself too by her ridiculous behaviour. They have known each other since childhood but while Ethan experienced the pleasures of his title and life Jane was helping her scholar father with his work. Ethan doesn't know whether he is the baby's father or not and he decides to investigate the whereabouts of the mother. His mother arrives in the middle of all this arguing and excitement and she invites Jane and her aunt with them to London. Jane insists on accompanying Ethan on his investigative visits and they are forced to spend considerable time together. They both realise their attraction and they can't help it despite of their strong and different opinions. Jane slowly falls in love with Ethan but she knows he hides some important things from her and he shuts everyone out of his heart. Ethan doesn't understand his feelings. The only thing clear to him is that under Jane's spinster garbs is a beautiful intelligent and passionate woman.Their finding the way to each other is wonderfully described by the author and their personalities fully developed. Both leading protagonists are remarkable characters and they deeply pull the reader into their fascinating and passionate lives. Ms. Smith knows human nature very well. She sees in the hearts and minds of her characters and the reader gets the opportunity to follow their emotional development throughout the book. As in all her novels the author combines the romance with a bit of mystery and it keeps the reader captivated until the end.
TO WICKED TO LOVE is a masterfully written historical romance with a very entertaining plot and interesting characters. I highly recommned it and look forward to reading more by this exceptionally imaginative author.
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4: 0 stars if I could
I really did not like this book. The plot has been described well already but my problem with this story is...Jane, our prissy, spinster heroine. Why oh why do so many historical authors feel that in order to redeem the hero rake he must fall in love with the plainest gal around? Make Jane plain if you must, but not so plain that it is ridiculous to really imagine Ethan not recognizing her at the ball. Hello - I don't believe plastic surgery was around back then to really allow such a transformation in Jane. Yes, good clothes can improve but not to recognize her? Really pretty ridiculous. Jane was so judgemental and nosy. Again, she barges into a man's bedroom, in his own home, and is surprised to find him with a woman? And why is it her business anyway?...Ethan deserved better than Jane, one of the most annoying female characters written in a along while.
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5: Barely passable
A baby is dumped on the doorstep of the most disapproving spinster in the disctrict; she immediately jumps to the - not impossible - conclusion that it is the bastard offspring of the local rakish earl, so Jane decides that it's her job to make Chasemore aware of his obligations. Poking her nose in, in other words. And she is shocked when she invades his bedchamber and finds him naked in bed with a woman - as if she had any right to be shocked, since it was her decision to insinuate herself.You may guess that I don't like the heroine. Jane is incredibly self-righteous and judgemental, and Smith does not do enough to redeem her for my liking. Even when Jane has to acknowledge that she was wrong about something, she says so in such a way that it still sounds as if she's criticising Ethan, or whoever it is she's talking to. She isn't at all a nice person, or someone I could like and identify with. What's worse is that, as other reviewers point out, Jane behaves exactly like Ethan's first wife: knowing that Ethan was manipulated into marriage by Lady Portia, Jane sets out to do exactly the same thing. She deliberately seduces Ethan, knowing that he will do the right thing. It would have served her right if he'd refused - in fact, I was hoping that he would. He deserves better. As for the baby, I found it hard to believe that an earl would show such interest in a foundling which might or might not have been his. Most aristocratic males showed absolutely no interest in any bastard children they might have fathered; if they gave the mother a sum of money for the child's keep, or found it a foster-home, they considered that they'd been more than generous. They would not be remotely interested in actually getting to know the child. Oh, and I too guessed the identity of the baby's mother at a fairly early stage. Again, it felt a very implausible development. One irritant: there is no such place as Wessex in England. The mythical court of King Arthur (he of the Round Table) was in Wessex, but this doesn't exist other than in legend. Again, Smith's writing is competent, but - as with Once Upon A Scandal - she fails to engage my emotions in any way. The very unlikeable heroine here probably means that I won't bother reading anything else by this author.
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