Reilly's Law
Grade : D-

The Reilly family was blessed by Druids with the ability to recognize moments of life-altering destiny. Bryan Reilly experiences the Blessing when a beautiful woman flings herself into his arms on the Limerick wharves and begs him to pretend to be her husband and save her and her children from danger. Bryan agrees, and collects the woman and her two "irresistible imps" onto his ship bound for England.

Emilynne Wellesley knows that Thaddeus Whyte, a slavering villain, murdered her brother and sister-in-law, and intends to obtain custody of their children and then kill them as well. Emilynne nabs her niece and nephew and escapes, throwing herself on the mercy of the handsome and reliable-looking Bryan. Little does she know that Bryan is actually a solicitor with the firm that is handling Thaddeus's custody claim.

Bryan and Emilynne spend the remainder of this book sorting through their various misunderstandings, pretending to be married (for the sake of the children's safety), falling in love, and defeating the schemes of the nefarious Thaddeus. This quest takes them from Ireland to England and back to Ireland.

The love story between these two is rather nice, and, true to the cover blurb, contains a very interesting legal twist at the end. Bryan and Emilynne are attractive characters, especially in their love for the children. Keys makes a good decision to have the irresistible imps stay out of the way for the most part, and instead shows us how much both hero and heroine are willing to sacrifice for their safety.

Unfortunately, Keys has an extremely florid writing style that makes it difficult to get to know either protagonist. Emilynne doesn't have blond hair, she has shimmering white-gold curls. Tables and chairs "vie for space" rather than just standing there, and at one point Bryan's pulse "pounded with the boldness borne of old wounds" - I'm not sure what that means. It's hard to feel chemistry between two characters when you're fighting your way through purple prose.

After a while, I realized that this book has a deeper problem than its flowery prose and ridiculously evil villain. There's a seeming lack of consideration of the context of the times.

Between 1846 and 1850, approximately one million people in Ireland died of starvation and disease. Another million fled, most of them to America, since England's doors were closed to them, in spite of the fact that they were British subjects. The English government did not cause the potato blight, but it refused to give food to the starving Irish and exported Ireland's healthy crops to English markets. The Reilly ancestral home is located in the west of Ireland, which was devastated by the famine. Every adult character in this novel lived through the desperation of the Irish Potato Famine. Not a single one of them, Irish or English, ever mentions it.

Nothing in Reilly's Law alludes to the fact that relations between the Irish and the English had probably never been worse in the entire history of the British Isles than they were during this time. No one mentions religion and the probable different faiths of our protagonists - not even when they marry. No one calls Bryan a dirty, brawling, lazy drunk, which was how many English people viewed the Irish. No one in Bryan's family sees Emilynne as one of the hated oppressors who starved them during the worst nightmare of their history.

There's more to history than pretty dresses, and there's a lot more to Ireland than cute magical legends. I understand Keys's desire to write a fun romance without delving into the whole depressing mess. But she should never have just ignored it. When I turned the last page of this book, I wondered why Keys decided to make her hero Irish if she didn't intend to include any factual information about Ireland at all. It was as though the hero was Irish only so he and the heroine could meet at a wharf and take a sea voyage. What a waste of history!

If you don't care about any of that and just want to read a nice love story, you might enjoy Reilly's Law more than I did. Bryan and Emilynne's relationship is gushingly told but romantic, and the way they work together for the children's safety is heartwarming. But to me, the love story was nowhere near strong enough to make up for the serious historical flaws that overshadowed everything else.

Reviewed by Jennifer Keirans
Grade : D-

Sensuality: Warm

Review Date : June 19, 2000

Publication Date: 2000

Review Tags: 

Recent Comments …

Jennifer Keirans

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
0
What's your opinion?x
()
x