Mr Ethan Brundy isn’t titled, he isn’t a gentleman or a snappy dresser and while not unattractive, is no well-muscled Adonis. This thoroughly charming Regency Romance, originally published in 1999 and now re-issued in digital formats, features a type of hero rarely found in historical romance. I'm left not only with a distaste for the novel itself, but I doubt I'll give anything by Sheri Cobb South a second look in future. All the period errors I passed over, all the opaque motivations I skipped, all the broad east-ender patois I just rolled with. I find her as intolerable when she's in love with Ethan as I did when being a jerk was her default mode.
This woman is too stupid to have nice things. Because that has any chance of actually working! And the potential for being caught in that bastards house, at night, just makes this stupid beyond all possible reason. It reached the last straw when she decides to rob the scheming letches house in dead of night to retrieve a necklace he stole. She decides to do one dumb thing after another instead. The entire last third of this story is her doing one stupid thing after another, including lying to Ethan to get money that will go to the man who is openly scheming to sleep with her! And time and again she encounters a situation where talking to Ethan will pretty much solve everything. But even though she finds herself in love with him, she still a) doesn't show him any kindness b) doesn't give him any affection, and c) doesn't trust him with helping her out of problems. So I kind of wanted to see that happen and persisted way, way longer than I was inclined to just to see it happen. And there's something to be said for kind treatment healing a wounded soul. Ethan rolls with it because he's "in love". But fine, wish-fulfillment whatever I'll roll with it.īut Helen is just mean.
Which all should have had the opposite effect of making him one of the richest men in England, frankly. Ethan is unfailingly kind and generous, including instigating lifestyle and safety reforms at his factories. The thing is that neither character really works at all. And it turns out that Ethan fell madly in love at first sight and that never changes despite her being fundamentally mean. I mean, Ethan pretty much buys Helen directly from her father in a meeting where they dicker over price. I cut this some slack for an incredibly bad beginning.
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