Thursday, July 5, 2012

Where's the Romance?


I don't usually like to review books, especially if it's one I didn't like, but this time I had to say something. Last week I bought Golden Vampire , a Harlequin Nocturne release, and I am still only slightly more than halfway through it. I don't think I will be finishing it at all, but I need to vent my frustrations about it.

1.) Where is the romance? I am on page 150 (of 280) and the hero (Lance) and heroine (Jesse) have only interacted a handful of times. Jesse has spent more time with her helicopter pilot, Stan, and actually clicks with him more.
2.) Jesse still thinks of Lance as a "damn freak" and a "dead thing" while pondering ways to kill him--even as she foolishly goes to his castle to sacrifice herself in place of the woman she's searching for.
3.) Lance, meanwhile, won't tell Jesse the truth about who he is (he saved her from vampires when she was a child), even though doing so would soften her attitude towards him.
4.) None of these things stop him from kissing her or of  her responding, not even as she is recoiling mentally. She also wants more from him (sexually, and somehow instinctively). Sorry, that's not romance, with her mind in that place, what she's contemplating is necrophilia. Gross.

So, I'm probably not going to read any further in this "romance" novel. To me, a romance is the hero and heroine and their relationship, not 150 pages of her hostility and his longing with no basis in their personalities or actions.

Anyway, I went over to read the reviews on Amazon, of which there were only six--five of which were five stars. Were we reading the same book? I won't be putting up my own review since I won't be finishing it, but it did make me wonder if the second half of Golden Vampire is completely awesome. Unfortunately, the first half of the book will keep me from ever finding out.

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