Back in the original Saturday Night Live days, I remember a spoof called “Married in a Minute” that took on in goofy fashion those 1950s-era Single-Girls-Find-Romance-and-Heartache-in-the-Big-City movies. As you can guess, Jane Curtin and pals were …well, married in a minute. Truth is, if Stephanie Laurens’ characters aren’t married quite so expeditiously, they do manage to achieve perfect couple-dom in about five minutes flat.

Once upon a time, I was firmly on Team Laurens. But I got tired of reading the same old story over and over (and over and over) again. By, oh, say, the 10th or 11th retelling, she’d become something of an insider joke to romance readers – and, hey, fair is fair and we calls ‘em like we sees ‘em.

I asked to review Temptation and Surrender – ominously dubbed A Cynster Novel – because I hadn’t read anything by the author in several years and I wondered if she could still be writing the exact same characters and storylines. The answer? Yep.

In this one, hero Jonas Tallent is Lucifer Cynster’s brother-in-law (and I have no idea what the title of Lucifer’s book is, though I’m sure I read it). For reasons that never became clear to me, it’s Jonas’ job to hire a new innkeeper for the town’s tavern and Emily Beauregard shows up to apply for the job – bringing along her fake references. It seems that Emily and her siblings are penniless and close to homeless, and she desperately needs the position. She also is set on solving a riddle she believes will lead her to a lost family fortune and, thus, save them all.

Emily is prickly. Jonas falls into instant lust. (Where have I read that before?) Then within that five-minute window I referred to previously, our powerful Cynster male (by marriage, anyway) decides that he must, he will marry Emily because she is the only woman in the world who could ever be his match. Just to keep our cozy couple-dom suitably cozy, Emily’s sister finds herself in perfect instant harmony with the town’s vicar. Or reverend. Or something like that.

In the meantime, Emily mouths off repeatedly to Jonas despite the fact that he is nominally her social superior, not to mention the employer on whom the survival of her entire family depends. Many historical anachronisms, hot instant sex, and much tedious riddle-solving later, they get their HEA.

The story stays well and truly within the Laurens formula guidelines: Powerful male decides that he will have…he must have the heroine! Heroine demurs…oh, no, powerful Cynster male, you are too controlling for this woman! Hero persists. Hero and heroine have tumultuous, he-will-not-be-denied sex. Many children (and sappy epilogue) result.

Here’s the thing: There is an assurance and sophistication to Stephanie Laurens’ prose that reminds me of what we all saw in her ten years ago. But, there comes a time, however, when you have to move on if you want to keep readers interested. Or maybe you don’t since the author is one of the few historical romance writers to succeed in hardcover.

So, if I disliked the book so much, why that C? Take the book’s D (or maybe D-) for storytelling and a B for prose and the result is a flat-out, middle-of-the-road, there-are-so-many-worse-books-but-so-many-better-ones-too C.

Still, I had a strong emotional reaction to Temptation and Surrender – something that doesn’t happen with most C books and here it is: I’m out. This time for good.