Book Log 53/2016 - Regina Scott: The Husband Campaign - The Master Matchmakers #3

[jacey]

I downloaded this from netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Note this is number three in a series, but not having read the first two wasn’t a problem. It works as a standalone. Maybe I didn’t look too carefully at the rest of the blurb once I’d seen there was a horse element to the story, but I didn’t realise this was a Christian–inspired historical romance. If I had I wouldn’t have started it. However the Christian aspects didn’t grate on me. Since this is set in the Regency it’s quite likely that the protagonists have a deep and abiding belief and that in times of trouble their thoughts turn skyward.

That said, unfortunately the characters and the storyline left me feeling a little meh. Other than two socially awkward people deciding they are in love after their marriage the only thing at stake is an equine transaction. The hero, John, is a minor aristocrat and a breeder and trainer of fine horses. Having accidentally ‘compromised’ the heroine he marries her out of a sense of duty and the rest of the book is Amelia setting out to earn his love and to get him to turn their relationship sexual. She would probably have an easier time of it if she had four hooves and ate oats for breakfast. John seems somewhat colourless and mostly sexless and Amelia is too nice (which she freely admits).

It’s a fast read and not without some interest, however the thing that really threw me out of the story is the heroine breakfasting on cold popovers—in a REGENCY novel! Harlequin, what was your copy editor thinking? Also the author is obviously American because a lot of her horse terms are particularly Americentric and they don’t transfer across the Atlantic. So instead of a stud or stud farm we have a ‘horse farm’ and instead of a bridle or even a headcollar, Amelia’s horse wears a ‘headstall’. John does explain to Amelia what a girth is, but instead of tightening the girth he ‘cinches’ it. Okay, maybe I’m being picky, and it doesn’t really affect the quality of the writing, but I do wish editors would run books set in England past an English beta-reader. Each time I came across something like that it dragged me out of the story.

Comments

[del-c.livejournal.com]

Because that jargon is so horse-specific, I wouldn't have spotted the errors, despite being English.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

It really pulled me out of the story because it screamed 'written by an American'. Not that there's anything wrong with Americans writing fiction about England, but it behooves them to seek out English terminology, not to assume their terminology is universal.

My Canadian friends come over here to Yorkshire and admire our 'stone fences' and I'm constantly telling them that they might be stone fences in Canada but in England they're dry stone walls.