I went to the used book store the other day, after a very painful trip to the dentist. I had loads of cotton gauze in my mouth and was still drooling when I headed over to the Romance Section. Oh, joy!I left my list of books to buy at home, so I decided to wing it and immediately ran to the "D" section, where I proceeded to pick up two Christina Dodd novels. BIG MISTAKE. Dodd is a hit or miss for me. Unfortunately, this time she was a miss, a big miss!
SCANDALOUS AGAIN is a novel that is best left at the bottom of any reader's list. Actually, strike that...it shouldn't even be on your list. Remove it. Throw the book out. Don't donate it to charity. Please! Some people are unfortunate enough as it is. They don't need a bad book tainting their existence, too.
The premise is a very simple, if not overdone, one. Madeline De Lacy, the Duchess of Magnus is in a pickle. Her gambling, useless father has lost her in a card game to a rich American magnate. She immediately devises a plan to...well, honestly I have no idea. She forces her cousin, Eleanor, who supposedly looks exactly like her, to switch places with her. Eleanor will meet the American Madeline is now supposed to marry and Madeline will go off into the country to..again I have no clue. I might have missed this part during a yawn or something, but I have no idea why Madeline goes off into country and ends up in some criminal's house. No clue. Needless to say, she's an idiot and a bossy one at that. A bitch, if you will. A stupid bitch. She soon runs into her ex-fiance, whom she dumped for some lame ass reason (read - he gambled, won a fortune and she basically ripped him a new one in front of all of Almacks and dumped him). Gosh, I want to spit at my computer screen right now. The heroine was some piece of work, spoiled and a total drama queen. When I first read the back blurb, I thought perhaps she had broken off her engagement because she caught her fiance with some prostitute or society matron. WRONG! The excuse she gives for breaking off her engagement is so asinine, I could not respect her. I was shocked (well, not really) when the hero took her back. I would have made her fall in love and then dumped her...in a cold river...literally!
Book stinks...there's really no other, more eloquent way to put it. It's terrible.
What makes me angry is that the sequel, ONE KISS FROM YOU, is apparently just as horrendous. Oh, yeah, and I bought it, too. Bah! Never buy under the influence of novacaine!
I hated this book with a passion. I hated the heroine with a passion. The hero? Meh! Sexy, but what a complete moron to take her back!
DON'T READ THE BOOK, if you know what's good for you!!!
