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La Fausse Comtesse (2010)

by Margaret Moore(Favorite Author)

3.51 of 5 Votes: 4

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Harlequin

review 1: I wanted to like this book so much. I have worked in the law for ages and I am studying (very slowly) for my law degree - you can imagine how excited I was to see that the heroine in this was a Regency female lawyer! What let this book down for me was the attitude towards intelligence, beauty and traditional gender roles. The story revolves around law-obsessed Esme, her solicitor brother and his friend and associate Quintus as they attempt to investigate a mystery. Esme was from the very first shrill, annoying and constantly "proving" her knowledge by telling her lawyer brother and his associate what the law was. When she and the hero are sent on the quest, she is ambivalent until the hero points out that she should be grateful to her brother for letting her do so much in ... morethe firm. And that was when my head exploded. LET HER do all his drafts? She's saving him a fortune! Yes, sure, it is fortunate for her that he has non-traditional ideas about her value as a woman, but he still just gives her housekeeping money, not a wage, and saves a fortune by not having to hire a junior or a clerk to do all the drafting work Esme is doing. But anyway, Esme and Quintus pretend to be married and she wears prettier clothes and they go to some parties, all the while Esme tries to hide both her intelligence and the fact that she secretly loves wearing pretty clothes. She occasionally slips because of the force of her personality but she's falling in love with Quintus and being a Lady so that makes things easier. *sigh* And Quintus talks a good game about being attracted to her intelligence, but there's an awful lot of word count spent on what she's wearing and her boobs and how these two things make him feel. And then at the end I feel that while lip-service is given to her dream, she has willingly accepted a far more traditional gender role that undermines a lot of who she was to begin with. I felt during the whole novel nothing much needed to be done by the characters to solve the mystery. Sure, the protagonists undertake tasks designed to help them gather information, but (without going into too much detail) in the end they could have done nothing at all and the only thing different would be they wouldn't have been forced into close proximity long enough to fall for each other. So I would say that while there was nothing wrong with the writing per se, I didn't enjoy the book overall. Some of the lines were brilliant and I actually really liked Quintus (though I would have liked a little more of his and his family's back story). 2.5 stars.
review 2: Esme McCallan aide son frère Jaimie, un jeune notaire, dans son travail journalier. Elle a un air sévére et strict qui lui donne un côté vieille fille rabat-joie et rien ne la passionne plus que son travail. Pour rien au monde elle ne souhaite montrer qu'elle aimerait bien se marier et avoir des enfants car au fond d'elle bat le coeur d'une véritable sufragette. Très dévoué à son frère qui se remet difficilement d'un chagrin d'amour, elle accepte de se rendre en écosse près de Catriona, l'ancien amour de celui-ci, qui réclame son aide dans une affaire délicate. Pour ce faire, son frère décide de l'y envoyer en compagnie de Quinn MacLachlann, son associé qui a pourtant une affreuse réputation de débauché mais dont la puissante famille leur ouvrira les portes de l'aristocratie où il devront mener l'enquête.Dès le début, on a bien du mal a cerner l'utilité de cette mission. Les frais engagés et la mise en danger de la réputation d'Esme lors de cette soi-disant enquête est totalement improbable. Tout est pretexte a confronter la jeune femme rigide avec le sulfureux Quinn. Et comme ils doivent se faire passer pour mari et femme, inévitablement, les embrouilles commencent.Même si les personnages sont sympathiques, particulièrement Esme avec ses idées modernes et son gout prononcé pour défendre les droits des femmes, ils restent cependant très caricaturaux ; tout comme les situations sans surprise. Il ne se passe pas grand chose, on fini par s'ennuyer. De temps à autre, on reléve le nez grâce à quelques dialogues qui font mouche mais cela ne suffit pas à maintenir l'intéret.La platitude de l'intrigue est desespèrante et le récit s'achève dans une overdose de bons sentiments et de clichés assomants.On a le sentiment d'avoir lu une romance historique destinée à un public d'adolescentes et c'est frustrant. less

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