I don’t believe in time travel, but that has never stopped me from enjoying time travel books. Nor do I believe in dragons, orcs, hobbits, or Klingons, yet I love science fiction and fantasy. I don’t believe in astrology, portents and psychic gifts which are the main focus of An Improper Bride, but that would not have stopped me from enjoying it if it was well-written. But it wasn’t.

Lady Elfrida Rochelle is a believer in visions and portents (she takes after her great-grandmother whose scrying stone she has inherited). Elfrida sees a vision of her “karmically predetermined astrologically perfect soul mate,” Guy the Earl of Shields. Shields is in danger, Elfrida knows she can help him, but she cannot marry him even though he is her karmically predetermined astrologically perfect soul mate because if she does, he will die. Shields has problems of his own. His mistress is a shrew, he suffers from ennui, and his friend Hepplewaite has been found dead in a burned room with a sword thrust through his body.

While he is in London, Shields catches glimpses of a beautiful woman who shows up around the periphery of wherever he is. He doesn’t recognize her, but he thinks of her as the Goddess of Beauty. Of course it is Elfrida, come to save her karmically predetermined astrologically perfect soul mate from great danger. Instead of the comedy the author was no doubt striving for, I found An Improper Bride to be a karmically predetermined astrologically perfect mess. If I have trouble starting a book, strike one. If I have trouble sticking to a book, strike two. If I have trouble finishing a book, it’s out. As umpire, I call this one a strike-out in a very loud voice.

The characters were neither funny, charming nor likable. The story was preposterous, and the writing style was overwrought in the extreme. Shield’s first glimpse of Elfrida is “an epiphanous event” likened to receiving a blow in the midsection from Gentleman Jackson. At one point Elfrida’s sister says that she hoped Elfrida has not been “imbibing that curious concoction of sominiferous herbs again” and when Elfrida and Shields consummate their karmically predetermined astrologically perfect passion, I was filled with giggles at the purple prose.

I do love a good old-fashioned over-the-top historical romance at times. Shirlee Busbee did a wonderful one with her recent Swear By The Moon. Even though Busbee’s book was larger-than-life, it was written with a more controlled hand than An Improper Bride. It doesn’t get much worse than the combination of unlikable characters, absurd plotting and clumsy writing found here; just about any other romance is bound to be better than this.