The Present is just about the most boring book I've ever read. It's not bad, it's just dull as all get-out. I had to force myself to turn the pages, and unless you are a super-duper Malory family fan, you probably will, too.
The first nine chapters are devoted to recounting all the members of the Malory clan, whom they married, and which irritating little tykes and tykettes they produced. These chapters had all the sparkle and charm of the "beget" portion of the New Testament. Not having read the other Malory books, this laundry list of fifty-or-so characters meant nothing to me, and in fact, irked me since I was spending valuable time reading it (while I could have been having a root canal). In fact, I didn't even know who the hero and heroine of The Present were until Chapter 10!
At any rate, The Present (which turns out to be a diary) is a story within a story - it has nothing to do with any of the begotten characters, but with Anastasia, the gypsy woman who married their grandfather, Lord Haverston (Christopher Malory), and started all the begetting in the first place. The major thrust of someone's gifting the Malorys with the diary is to convince Molly the Malory Housekeeper to marry Lord Jason Malory, with whom she has been carrying on a forty-year affair. Their affair resulted in one Lord Derek Malory. Forty years? An illegitimate lord? And nobody suspects? Right.
Once The Present is opened, the story of how Anastasia and Christopher met and got together began, and the book took on a bit more interest, but not a whole lot. Anastasia is a gypsy (whose father was of noble birth in Russia, thereby making her a social equal of Lord Haverston's, after a fashion).
Anastasia is betrothed to an awful gypsy, and unless she finds and marries a man for true love before her grandmother dies (in exactly seven days hence), all will be lost. Well, Christopher shows up to throw the gypsy band off his land, sees Anastasia, gets the hots for her and wants to set her up in London as his mistress. But Anastasia thwarts his advances, and tells him nothing less than marriage will do.
Well, Christopher goes on a bender and shows up again at the gypsy camp so drunk, he doesn't remember the next day what he did to convince Anastasia to come back with him and sleep with him. He awakens in his own bed with Anastasia unabashedly naked beside him and Christopher soon discovers he married the girl during his drunken ordeal. He becomes furious, she leaves - telling him to get a divorce - but Christopher doesn't press for divorce immediately, as Anastasia assumes he will. What follows is the dance the two go through, with the help of well-meaning friends, to ultimately find their happily ever after.
While Anastasia and Christopher's story was more interesting than the rest of the book, it was only just okay, and kept me in thrall not at all. I simply never learned to care about this couple, bland as they were.
Take out the Malory family reunion, and this book would only have been seventeen chapters in length - not enough to justify the $16.00 hardcover price-tag I'm sure - so it was padded up to thirty, just to make you think you were getting your money's worth I guess. This small hardback is only 200 pages in length - that's a lot of money for very little story, but if you've read, and just loved the heck out of the Malory's, you might find The Present worthwhile. I didn't.
Sensuality: Subtle
Publication Date: 1999
Recent Comments …
Is that true for ebooks as well? Because my library (bless it!) is part of a county-wide system for ebooks,…
I loved their interchanges. It is a lovely romance. I so wish there would be a second season!
I’m glad you liked it! One of my favorite exchanges: Jack (to Belle): Would you like to perform a dangerous…
Traditionally published books have become so expensive. No way could my budget accommodate the number of books I read at…
Sometimes, it’s just a gut feeling, honestly. But there wasn’t the same sense of… urgency or compulsion to read at…
I loved paradise so much and I cannot read it anymore! The manipulative father and how she keeps appeasing and…