Vellum Voyages

1 helm

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There are two things I loved about this book:

1) The cover
2) The title (I loved the movie, so I thought this was a cute little spin on it)

That's all.

As I began to read, I got irritated...from page one till the end. This was not your average irritation at certain parts, but a full blown "why am I doing this to myself" rage. It was painful reading and this was really close to being a DNF** book, but I forced myself to persevere as I had already read up to 50%.

Mary Elizabeth is a wild, highlander hellion who is in the market for a husband by order of her family. She doesn't want to marry at all and is hell bent on not marrying an English husband, as that means giving up on her beloved highlands of Scotland. While on an invited house party trip to the Duke of Northumberland's estate, Mary mistakes Harold Percy to be a stable boy but who is in fact, the Duke. Harry continues to encourage her mistake, and they get to know each other better via this farce and start to fall in love.

This is a light hearted and easy read, if you are reading this without a critical eye. It might work for some, but unfortunately this didn't work for me. Mary Elizabeth came across to me as TSTL*** rather than feisty and Harry was so boring. The characters were not enchanting, there were numerous plot holes (I haven't read the previous books so I don't know if I might have had a slightly better reading experience if I had) and the whole book felt highly anachronistic and discordant. The relationship and background story about Mary Elizabeth's mother felt really random and unexplained too. The writing was just okay and the world building was sub-par.

Nothing's more interesting to me than a feisty, untamed rogue hero or heroine but neither Mary or Harry stirred by emotions or curiosity :(

*Thank-you Christy English, NetGalley & Sourcebooks Casablanca for the ARC
**DNF-Did Not Finish
***TSTL-Too Stupid To Live