Love and Mayhem
Grade : B-

There will be two types of people reading this book - those who immediately recognize the American theater standard being parodied by the author and get a few chuckles from it, and those who don't catch the send-up, take everything at face value, and wind up mightily horrified. While the romance contained here is not the strongest I've read, the story itself has enough odd and clever moments to garner a qualified recommendation.

Lady Marion McCall has been betrothed to Iain Armstrong since childhood, an alliance meant to bring peace along the borders and placate the Courts of both Scotland and the hated English. However, marriage is the last thing on Marion's mind when Iain arrives at her convent. Marion is a willful young woman (perhaps dangerously close to being feisty)and she has no patience for a man who states very simply that he will marry her.

Love and Mayhem really reads as though it is two books. The first part of it is primarily a standard "unwilling bride" story focusing on Iain's determination to do his duty and wed Marion. Watching Iain, a smart and resourceful man who makes a rather likable hero, deal with his stubborn betrothed is entertaining. Marion, for her part, is a little too close to foot-stomping and curl-tossing for my taste, but she does grow on the reader somewhat - that is to say, she is not unredeemably feisty.

As the book moves toward the second half, that's where the farce I mentioned begins to factor into the equation. I cannot describe it in detail without giving too much away (though the back cover contains a few spoilers), but suffice it to say that Marion and Iain's story becomes intertwined with a family situation that is like something out of a play beloved by theater groups all over the country. The result is a little shocking, but also rather amusing in an "I really shouldn't be laughing at this but just can't help myself" kind of way.

This book is somewhat lighter than the books written by this team under the May McGoldrick name. However, one strength they have is that while they write light historical after a fashion, they are able to do it without turning the setting into mere wallpaper. The history may not be thoroughly accurate and the book may not dwell upon actual historical events to the extent that a more serious historical novel would, but the authors still manage to mix elements of history into the story. At a time where "light historical" seems to have become a synomym for "shallow wallpaper", this use of setting alone makes the book stand out.

Even so, this novel is not without its weaknesses. The story takes entirely too long to really catch the imagination. The opening grabbed me, but then I met the feisty Marion and had to deal with the "I hate you no I love you" routine that so often irks me in a story - and which makes a few chapters of this particular book move very slooowly. Fortunately, things do pick up again later. The humorous elements of the plot did not always work for me (some of it really was a little macabre for my taste), but I still got a few chuckles here and there. This book has its good moments, it is certainly unusual, and given the current run of homogenous wallpaper I'm subjected to when I go shopping for historicals, this is enough to garner a qualified recommendation from me.

Reviewed by Lynn Spencer
Grade : B-

Sensuality: Warm

Review Date : April 12, 2006

Publication Date: 2006

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Lynn Spencer

I enjoy spending as much time as I can between the covers of a book, traveling through time and around the world. When I'm not having adventures with fictional characters, I'm an attorney in Virginia and I love just hanging out with my husband, little man, and the cat who rules our house.
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