"The Countess and the Butler" by Elizabeth Brodnax
Yet another mistaken library selection, but this one felt much more comfortable and readable than the other romance about a countess. It's a hardback edition, not the little paperback shown below, and it's quite un-romantic-novel-looking, so I was fooled enough to actually bring it home. Heh.
In this book, the hero and heroine are more realistic. The hero is not so handsome that servants faint as he walks past, and the heroine doesn't curtsy so perfectly that she sends the recipients of her genuflections into paroxysms of beatitudes. Huzzah! Perfectly reasonable nice people who fall in love. The 'sidekicks' aren't too cliche'd, the "villain" is not too villainy nor do they have too much influence in the book, the characters learn and grow. A nice readable romance that has a bit of intrigue (a bit, mind you - it's all rather kind of hand wave-y and not very menacing, which actually is kind of a good point - I hate "romances" that end up being all about gore, guns, menace, and multiple murders. Um, ew? not very romantic?) and a bit of made-up history. She had to fit in a country where one doesn't exist - I like to think of all these fake countries getting together at some United Imaginary Nations and talking about how they can get their hands on some real acreage....
Hee. Estavia does exist. Well, in some other imaginary land, that is. Hee.
Anyway, nice read. It didn't send me to sleep, but that's ok, tonight's insomnia would have prevailed no matter what I was reading. Even (shudder) Cisco networking tomes wouldn't have worked tonight.
Comments